THE 


AMERICAN  ORATOR. 


WITH 


CONTAINING 


THE  DECLARATION"  OF  INDEPENDENCE,  WITH  THE  F AC-SIMILES  OF  THE 
AUTOGRAPHS  OF  THE  SIGNERS  ;  THE  CONSTITUTION  OF  THE  UNITED 
STATES  ;  WASHINGTON'S  FAREWELL  ADDRESS  ;  AND  FAC- 
SIMILES OF  THE  AUTOGRAPHS  OF  A  LARGE  NUM- 
BER OF  DISTINGUISHED  INDIVIDUALS. 


BY 

LEWIS  C.  MUNN. 


jFourtp  Button. 


WORCESTER: 
PUBLISHED  BY  THE  COMPILER, 

No.   233   MAIN  STREET. 

18  55. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1859,  bv 
LEWIS  C.  MTJNN, 
In  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  District  of  Massachusetts. 


Stereotyped  by 
HOB  ART  &  ROBBIjVH, 

BOSIO.V. 

TBTffTEP  BY  STAC V  AKD  RICHARDSON,  1*0.1]   Milk  6trOCt 


PREFACE. 


It  has  long  been  the  belief  of  the  compiler  of  "  The 
American  Orator"  that  a  work  of  its  character  could 
not  fail  to  be  of  interest  to  the  public.  We  are  emphatic- 
ally a  nation  of  talkers.  The  ambition  of  nearly  all  our 
men  of  intellectual  eminence  seems  to  be  to  succeed  in  the 
field  of  oratorical  display.  From  those  fortunate  individ- 
uals who  have  secured  for  themselves  a  seat  in  our  national 
and  state  legislatures,  down  to  the  more  humble,  but  not 
less  ambitious,  personage  who  edifies  the  public  on  Fourth 
of  July  occasions,  or  from  the  village  lyceum  rostrum,  all 
exhibit  the  most  unconquerable  desire  to  obtain  the  reputa- 
tion which  Brutus  possessed  and  Antony  disclaimed. 

It  would  be  singular,  indeed,  if  out  of  this  mass  of  mat- 
ter continually  given  to  the  public,  much  that  is  merit- 
orious should  not  be  produced.  With  this  conviction,  it 
has  been  the  aim  of  the  compiler  to  endeavor  to  present,  in 
a  necessarily  limited  compass,  what  he  deemed  the  fairest 
specimens  of  the  abilities  of  those  who  had  attained  the 
highest  rank  in  their  vocation.  In  this  somewhat  arduous 
labor,  he  has  in  some  instances  been  kindly  assisted  by  the 


IV 


PREFACE. 


authors  themselves,  and  he  would  avail  himself  of  this  occa- 
casion  to  return  to  them  his  grateful  acknowledgments. 

In  selecting  the  "  Specimens,"  the  design  has  been  to 
represent  both  the  pulpit  and  the  forum.  If  the  extracts 
from  efforts  made  in  the  latter  field  shall  seem  to  prepon- 
derate, the  compiler  offers  as  his  excuse  the  fact  that  it  is 
here  the  American  mind  seems  most  naturally  to  seek  its 
development,  and  consequently  here  we  find  its  most  char- 
acteristic representation. 

In  the  Appendix  to  the  work,  it  is  believed,  there  is 
presented  an  entirely  original  feature.  Allusion  is  made 
to  the  large  collection  of  fac  similes  of  the  autographs  of 
distinguished  men  of  this  and  other  countries ;  and,  in  this 
connection,  the  compiler  cannot  omit  to  acknowledge  his 
great  obligations  to  that  "  prince"  of  autograph  collectors, 
Charles  H.  Morse,  Esq.,  of  Cambridgeport,  Mass.,  who 
has,  with  the  kindest  liberality,  placed  his  invaluable  col- 
lection entirely  at  his  service,  in  preparing  the  work. 

Boston,  January,  1853. 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS. 


The  Declaration  of  Independence,  Adams,  J.  Q. 

Madison  and  the  Constitution,  Adams,  J.  Q. 

Early  Deeds  of  our  Fathers,  Adams,  J.  Q. 

Public  Faith,  Ames,  F.  .  . 

The  British  Treaty,  Ames,  F.  .  . 

Against  Surrendering  the  Frontier  Posts,  Ames,  F.  .  . 

Early  Days  of  the  Revolution,  Austin,  J.  T. 

Early  Achievements  of  Americans,  Austin,  J.  L. 

Character  of  General  Jackson,  Bancroft,  G. 

The  Light  of  Knowledge,  Barnard,  D.  I) 

Christianity  the  Basis  of  Liberty,  Beecher,  L.  . 

England's  Dislike  of  America,  Bell,  J.  .  .  . 

The  West  and  the  South,  Benton,  T.  H. 

Progress  of  the  Caucasian  Race,  Benton,  T.  H. 

An  Appeal  for  Union,  Berrien,  J.  M. 

Future  Empire  of  our  Language,  Bethune,  G.  W.  . 

The  Problem  for  the  United  States,  Boardman,  H.  A. 

Dedication  of  the  Davis  Monument,  at  Acton,  Mass.,  .  Boutwell,  G.  S. 

War  with  France,  Buchanan,  J. 

Agriculture  and  Commerce,  Buckminster,  J.  S. 

Free  Discussion,  Burgess,  T.    .  . 

Relief  of  the  Survivors  of  the  Revolution,  Burgess,  T.    .  . 

Kossuth  in  Massachusetts,  Burlingame,  A.  . 

The  Backwoodsmen,  Burlingame,  A.  . 

The  Future  Age  of  Literature,  Bushndl,  H.    .  . 

Music,   Bushnell,  H.    .  . 

Eirth  of  Nations,  Bushnell,  H.     .  . 

The  South  and  the  Union,  Butler,  A.  P.   .  . 

War  with  France,  Calhoun,  J.  C. 

The  Force  Bill,  ■  Calhoun,  J.  C.  . 

V.":u-  Preferable  to  Submission,  Calhoun,  J.  C. 

Great  Britain  not  Invincible,  Cal/wun,  J.  C. 

The  Suspension  of  Diplomatic  Relations  with  Austria,  .  Cass,  L.   .  . 

The  Preservation  of  the  Union,  Cass,  L.   .  . 

Completion  of  the  Wabash  and  Erie  Canal,  Cass,  L.   .  . 

The  Old  World  and  the  New,  Cass,  L.   .  . 

The  Judiciaiy,  Channing,  W. 

Burning  of  the  Lexington,  Chapin,  E.  H. 

Knowledge  is  Power,  Chapin,  E.  H. 

The  Heroism  cf  the  Pilgrims,  Choate,  R.  . 

The  First  Battle-ground  of  the  Revolution,  Choate,  R.  . 

Ambiguity  of  Speech,  Choate,  R.  . 

Character  of  Daniel  Webster,  Choate,  R.  . 

Future  of  America,  Clay,  C.  M. 

Aspirations  for  America,  Clay,  C.  M.  . 

Example  of  America,  Clay,  C.  M.  . 

The  Consequences  of  Disunion,  Clay,  H.  .  . 

The  Union,  Clay,  H.  .  . 


E. 


PAGE 

48 
119 

316 

G3 
203 
300 
259 
320 
234 

98 
199 
3  GO 
269 
281 

87 
308 
280 
276 
133 
158 
.  36 
.  225 
345 
307 
220 
251 
336 

72 
15G 
192 
222 
305 

57 
162 
264 
302 
376 

40 
208 

75 
172 
212 
363 
176 
246 
257 

16 

35 


1* 


6 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS. 


Public  Virtue,  Clay,  H   167 

In  I5eh^lf  of  Greece,  Chi/,  IT.  ....  242 

Fur  Prosecuting  the  War,  Cloy,  H   283 

Against  Alliance  with  England,  Clemens,  J.  .  .  .  351 

Dangers  of  the  Spirit  of  Conquest,  Corwin;  T.  .  .  .  297 

Eulogy  upon  Henry  Clay,  Crittenden,  J.  J.  .  259 

Sectional  Services  in  the  Last  War,  disking,  C.     .  .  86 

The  South,  -Davis,  Jef.    ...  94 

The  Battle  of  Bunker  Hill,  Dearborn,  H.  A.  S.  221 

Attention  the  Soul  of  Genius,  Dewey,  O.    .  .  .  70 

The  Nobility  of  Labor,  Dewey,  O.  .  .  .  126 

The  Dignity  of  Human  Nature,  Dewey,  0.    .  .  .  171 

The  Union,  Dickinson,  D.  S.  .  59 

Agriculture,  Dickinson,  D.  S.  .  84 

The  Influence  of  Christianity,  Dice,  J.  A.    ...  61 

Obedience  to  the  Constitution,  Douglass,  S.  A.  .  74 

From  an  Eulogy  on  Lafayette,  Everett,  E.    .  .  .  16 

The  American  Union,  Everett,  E.   .  .  .  66 

The  Experiment  of  Self-government,  Everett,  E.   .  .  .  145 

The  Survivors  of  the  Revolution,  Everett,  E.    .  .  .  157 

The  Land  of  our  Fathers,  Everett,  E.   ...  169 

Adams  and  Jeiferson,  Everett,  E.    ...  224 

Sulferings  and  Destiny  of  the  Pilgrims,  Everett,  E.    .  .  .  239 

The  Lexington  Martyrs,  Everett,  E.   ...  271 

From  an  Address  at  Bloody  Brook,  Everett,  E.   .  .  .  293 

Deaths  of  Adams  and  Jefferson,  Everett,  E.   .  .  .  347 

The  Last  Hours  of  Daniel  Webster,  Everett,  E.   ...  353 

Washington's  Farewell  Address,  Everett,  E.   ...  372 

The  Patriot's  Hope,  Ewing,  T.    .  .  .  346 

Restless  Spirit  of  Humanity,  Fish,  W.  ....  230 

Party  Spirit,  Gaston,  W.  .  .  .  104 

Wars  of  Kindred  Races,  Gaston,  W.  .  .  .  214 

Patriotism,  Giles,  H.  ....  324 

Genius,  Giles,  H.  .   .   .   .  349 

Self-sacrificing  Ambition,  Greely,  H.   .  .  .  103 

The  True  Reformers,  Greely,  H.   .  .  .  112 

Human  Life,  Greely,  H.   ...  129 

The  Experiment  of  Self-government,  Hale,  J.  P.  .  .  .  3(!9 

Religion  and  Poetry,  Hamersley,  W.  J.  240 

The  South  during  the  Revolution,  Hayne,  R.  Y.  .  .  312 

The  Development  of  our  Country,  Henry,  C.  S.   .  .  93 

Resistance  to  England,  Henry,  P.    ...  197 

Duties  of  Americans,  Hillard,  G.  S.     .  81 

The  Fourth  of  July,  Hillard,  G.  S.     .  307 

The  Destiny  of  the  United  States,  Hilliard,  H.W.  .  137 

Death  of  J.  Q.  Adams,  Holmes,  I.  E.  .  .  30 

Address  to  Kossuth,  Hopkins,  E.  .  .  .  309 

The  Militia  of  the  Revolution,   Hubbard,  H.    .  .  149 

Remembrance  of  the  Good,  Humphrey,  H.  .  .  179 

Sorrow  for  the  Dead,  Irving,  W.   ...  24 

Union  Linked  with  Liberty,  Jackson,  A.  .  .  .  88 

An  Appeal  to  South  Carolina,                                     Jackson,  A.  .  .  .  99 

Farewell  Address  to  his  Troops,  Jackson,  A.  .  .  .  250 

Sulferings  of  Greece,  Jarvis,  R   304 

A  Republic  the  Strongest  Government  Jefferson,  T.  .  .  .  K  3 

Charity  should  Commence  at  Home,  Junes,  J.  C.  .  .  .  356 

Address  to  the  Citizens  of  Lexington,  Kellogg,  E.  H.    .  378 

The  Mechanical  Epoch,  Kennedy,  J.  P.    .  254 

For  Independence,  Lee,  R.  H.  .  ■  .  290 

Republics,  Legare,  H.  S.  .  .  26 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS.  i 

PAGE 

The  ConstJ  ution  not  an  Experiment,  Legare,  H.  S.  .  .  177 

America,  ■  Legare,  H.  S.  .  .  318 

Growth  of  America,  Legare,  H.  S.  .  .  326 

The  Alien  Bill,  Livingston,  E.  .  .  216 

The  Ship  of  State,  Lunt,  W.  P.  .  .  380 

Ignorance  a  Crime  in  a  Republic,  Mann,  H.     ...  73 

Education  of  the  Young,  Mann,  H.     .  .  .  191 

Louis  Kossuth,  Mann,  H.     ...  313 

An  Appeal  for  Union,  McDowell,  J.   .  .  377 

Popular  Excitement  in  Elections,  McDuffie,  G.    .  .  134 

The  Permanence  of  American  Liberty,  McDuJfie,  G.    .  .  144 

South  Carolina  under  Federal  Legislation,  ......  McDuffie,  G.   .  .  274 

Unlawful  Military  Combinations,  McLean,  J.  .  .  .  210 

American  Innovations,  Madison,  J.  .  .  .  296 

The  Federal  Compact,  Morris,  G.    .  .  .  96 

Peace  and  National  Honor,  Morris,  G.    .  .  .  Ill 

Fear  of  Foreign  Power,   Morris,  G.    .  .  .  200 

Northern  Laborers,  Naylor,  C.  C.  *  .  148 

The  Death  of  Hamilton,  JSott,  A   105 

The  Snirit  of  Liberty,  Otis,  J.   296 

The  Sacred  Trust  of  Liberty,  Otis,  W.  F.  .  .  .  355 

The  Death  of  Washington,  '  Puine,  R.  T.    .  .  28 

The  Disinterestedness  of  "Washington,  Pame,  R.  T.    .  .  55 

French  Aggressions,  Paine,  R.  T.    .   .  196 

Massachusetts  and  Virginia,  Palfrey,  J.  G.  .  .  194 

Death  of  Daniel  Webster,  Park,  J.  C.  .  .  .  359 

The  National  Defences,  Pierce,  F.  ....  138 

The  Missouri  Question,  Pinckney,W.  .  183 

Xew  England  and  the  Union,  Prentiss,  S.  S.     .  20 

The  Famine  in  Ireland,  Prentiss,  S.  S.     .  153 

The  Right  to  discuss  Presidential  Acts,   Preston,  TV.  C.    .  39 

The  Patriot's  Duty,  Quincy,  J.    .  .  .  229 

Extent  of  Country  no  Bar  to  Union,  Randolph,  F.    .  .  295 

Fear  of  British  Influence,  Randolph,  J.     .  .  202 

Anniversary  of  the  First  Battle  of  the  Revolution,  .  .  Rantoul,  R.  Jr.    .  31 

Survivors  of  the  Battle  of  Lexington,  B.antonl,  R.  Jr.    .  343 

Value  of  the  Union,  Russell,  C.  T.  .  124 

Military  Qualifications  distinct  from  Civil,  Sergeant,  J.  .  .  .  178 

The  Death  of  O'Connell,  Seward,  W.  H.   .  77 

For  the  Irish  Patriots,  Shields,  J.    ...  338 

The  Fall  of  Switzerland,  Smith,  S   209 

The  Example  of  our  Forefathers,  Sparks,  J.     ...  62 

Death  of  William  Pinckney,  Sparks,  J.    ...  113 

The  Stability  of  our  Government,  Sprague,  C.  .  ,  .  65 

Justice  to  England,  Sprague,  C.  .  .  .  255 

Hope,  Spring,  G.    ...  122 

The  Dissolution  of  the  Union,  Stewart,  A.   .  .  .  117 

Against  Flogging  in  the  Navy,  Stockton,  R.  F.    .  286 

Destiny  of  America,  Story,  78 

The  Fate  of  the  Indians,  Story,  97 

Classical  Studies,  Story,  154 

Dedication  of  the  Cemetery  at  Mount  Auburn,  .  .  .  .  Story,  J.  ....  173 

Ancient  and  Modern  Productions,  Sumner,  C.  .  .  .  29 

Wisdom  of  the  Ancients,  Sumner,  C.  .  .  .  208 

The  Reign  of  Peace,  Sumner,  C.  .  .  .  284 

The  American  Government,  Van  Buren,  M.    .  292 

Success  of  American  Institutions,  Van  Buren,  M.    .  329 

Our  Scholars  not  dependent  upon  Privileged  Orders,    .  Verplanck,  G.  C.  .  56 


£  INDEX  TO  .iTTO^nAPHS. 


f  AGE 

The  Freedom  of  Science  in  America,  Verplanck,  G.  C.  .  155 

T.'ic  Influence  of  Free  Institutions  Ennobling,  ....  Verplanck,  G.  C.  .  165 

Influence  ot  America  upon  Mankind,   Verplanck,  G.  C.  .  ISO 

Anniversary  of  the  Boston  Massacre,   Warren,  J.   .  .  .  142 

Howard,  the  Philanthropist,  Wayland,  F.   .  .  ll:8 

lirst  Settlement  of  New  England,  .  Webster,  D.  .   .  .  13 

Laying  of  the  Corner-stone  of  Bunker  Hill  Monument,  Webster,  D..  .  .  51 

Our  Country's  Origin,  Webster,  P.  .  .  .  S3 

Supposed  Speech  of  John  Adams,  Webster,  J}.  .  .  .  SO 

American  Institutions,  Webster,  D.  .  .  .  128 

The  Spirit  of  Human  Liberty,  Webster,  I).  .  .  .  136 

Centennial  Birthday  of  Washington,  Webster,  D.  .  .  .  183 

Eulogy  upon  J.  C.  Calhoun,  Webster,  D.  .  .  .  21(> 

Free  Discussion,   Webster,  D.  .  .  .  233 

The  Murderer's  Secret,  Webster,!)*  .  .  .  244 

Moral  Force  against  Physical,  Webster,  D.  .  .  .  281 

Adams  and  Jefferson,  Webster,  D.  .  .  .  331 

Resistance  to  Oppression  in  its  Rudiments,  Webster,  JD*  .  .  .  371 

Liberty,  Whipple,  E.  P.   .  KG 

The  Puritan,   Whipple,  E.  P.    .  2S8 

In  Memory  of  Washington,  Winthrop,  R.  C.  .  21 

Massachusetts  Men  in  the  Revolution,  Winthrop,  R.  C.  .  321 

Importance  of  Education,  Winthrop,  R.  C.  .  327 

Slow  Growth  of  Freedom,  Winthrop,  R.  C.  .  337 

New  England  and  Virginia,  Winthrop,  R.  C.  .  3G2 

Formation  of  Character,  Wirt,  W.     ...  4<i 

Intelligence  a  National  Safeguard,  Woodbury,  L.  .  .  110 

American  Independence,  Woodbury,  L.  .  .  247 

Respect  for  American  Rights,  Woodbury,  L.  .  .  272 


DECLARATION  OF  INDEPENDENCE,  3S1 

CONSTITUTION  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES,  391 

WASHINGTON'S  FAREWELL  ADDRESS,   .   400 


INDEX  TO  AUTOGRAPHS. 


...        _  . 
Abbott,  Jacob    .  . 

PAGE 
A97 

t>  n  f 

PAGE 

444 

-Duller,  x>.  jc  •     •  . 

PAGS 

A  1  7 
.  41  I 

Abercrouiby,  J.  . 

ai  l 
.  4 i i 

Bellinghaui,  B.  . 

.  443 

U„flpr     a  p 

A  1  Q 

A  ')A 

Benjamin,  Park  . 

A9ft 

a  4ZO 

A  \0 

A  i  l\ 

j_>enion,  jl.  h.   .  . 

AT  1 

a  411 

A  1  7 

A  A       m  n  T 

uetnane,  ix.  \v.  . 

.  404 

Byron,  INeol  Lady 

•  ir48 

Adams,  John    .  . 

OO'J 

.  ooo 

Riilrll.j  T 

A '-HI 
a  ioa 

Pi  1  'n/m  n       T  P 

uaiuoun,  «j  .  \j.  .  . 

.  41.4 

A  A -.    t  n 

RJ/^l/i  AT 

A  Oti. 

Oaluoun,  \V .  is.  . 

.  425 

OamDxeieng,  O.  Kj. 

.  440 

Aiiisworta,  VV.  J±. 

.  435 

A  <  It 

Campbell,  A.     .  . 

.  417 

A  l/i/. W  A 

A  'JU 

DOllU,    »>  .  \j.   .     a  . 

A91 
a  4-1 

oampneii,  ±.     .  . 

P  i  in  aiktil  1     W  R 
UalllpDcH,   >v  a   x>.  a 

.  415 

Alrlon  T 

At  4 

43  (i 

.  40  A 

Allen,  Charles  •  . 

X>OLld,    J  *     1*1.    •      a  • 

422 

Carleton,  Guy   •  . 
Canning,  Creorge  . 

Allen,  Ethan  .  .  . 

.  4o  1 

P-nJu    w  P 

445 

a  4^U 

.nllatOl),  w .     .    .  . 

.  4  j  i 

At  7 

PorNrlu  T 

A  1  ( 

A  1  t-/\w1     T  n 

Ai\ om,  J .  o.    .  . 

A  A  U 

.  44tf 

.ooui/weu,  \jr.  o.  . 

Al  ft 

a  410 

Carroll,  Charles  . 

a  380 

Ames,  k  isher    •  . 

40  y 

L>0>VUllUll,    J_\  a          a  a 

a  411 

Cass,  Lewis  ... 

A'i  T 
a    40  0 

45U 

Bowdoin,  Jas.   a  a 

.  445 

A  1  ^ 

Anthony,  H.  B.  . 

A1A 

Boyd,  Linn    .  .  . 

.'  422 

A  •>  O 

Appietoa,  S.  .  .  . 

.  446 

Braddock,  E.    a  a 

a  454 

Channing,  W.  E.  . 

.  4Z.4 

a  nu 

crauouiy,  j.  >>  .  . 

a  44U 

A  O  1 

Atherton,  C.  G\  . 

A  'in 

orauioiu,  »v .     .  . 

a  443 

Chase,  S.  P.  .  .  . 

.  425 

Audubon,  J.  J. 

Al  «4 

.  4ii» 

X>iaUIOltU,    >V  .        .  . 

.  441 

Chase,  Satnuel  .  . 

o  u  X 

Bainbridge,  W.  . 

Al  7 
.  41  < 

Rr»*irl.L-t?-/}tif  Q 

AIR 

Braxton,  Carter  . 

.  387 

Cheever,  G.  B.  .  . 

.  4oJ 

uaiuwin,  iv.  o.  .  . 

441 

Bremer,  I1  •    ■  («  ■ 

.  423 

Child,    L.    M.    a      a  a 

Ballou,  Hosea   .  . 

.  427 

Brewster,  W.    .  . 

a  451 

Childs,  H.  H.    .  . 

439 

Baltimore,  C.     .  . 

.  453 

Bridgman,  L.  J.  . 

a  454 

Ciioate,  Bufus   .  . 

.  435 

.  422 

BriggS,  Ga   ff.        a  . 

Banks,  N.  P.  jr.  . 

.  4iy 

Brooks,  John    .  . 

a  430 

441 

Brooke,  W.    .  .  . 

Clay,  Cassius  M.  . 

.  424 

Barauui,  P.  T.  .  . 

.  452 

Clay,  Henry  .  .  . 

.  412 

Bartlett,  Josiah  . 

.  384 

Browuell,  T.  C.  .  . 

a  420 

.  451 

Barron,  James  .  . 

.  445 

Brownson,  0.  A.  . 

a  417 

Clifford,  J.  H.   .  . 

.  452 

Clinton,  De  Witt  . 

.  432 

Barnes,  A.    .  .  . 

.  419 

Bryant,  W.  C.  .  . 

a  420 

Clinton,  Sir  II.  .  . 

.  420 

Clymer,  George  . 

.  389 

Bates,  Isaac  C.  .  . 

.  410 

Buckingham,  J.  T. 

.  413  Cobbett,  Wm.    .  . 

.  429 

Beardsley,  S.    .  . 

.  453 

.  438 

Burgess,  T.    .  .  . 

.432 

Collier,  H.  W.  .  . 

.  439 

Beecher,  C.  E.  .  . 

.  433 

Burgoyne,  J.  F.  . 

.  418 

451 

Burgoyne,  J.     .  . 

.  411 

Combe,  Andrew  . 

.  433 

Beecher,  H.  W.  . 

.  415 

Burke,  E  

Combe,  George  .  . 
Combs,  Leslie    .  . 

.  420 

Beecher,  L.   .  .  . 

.  428 

Burlingame,  A.  . 
Burritt,  Elihu  .  . 

.  434 

.  419 

.  428  Congreve,  Wni.  .  . 

.  425 

.444!  Cook,  Eliza      .  . 

.  421 

X 


INDEX  TO  AUTOGRAPHS. 


Cook,  James  .  . 
Cookin,  D.  .  . 
Cooper,  J.  F. 
Cooper,  S.  F.  . 
Cornwallis,  .  . 
Corning,  E.  .  . 
Corwin,  T.  .  . 
Cox,  Samuel  II. 
Crawford,  W.  H. 
Crittenden,  J.  J. 
Crockett,  D.  .  . 
Croswell,  E. 


Cruikshank,  George  .  446 


Cuvier,  B.  C. 
Cushing,  Caleb  . 
Cushman,  H.  W. 
Cushman,  C.  .  . 
Daggett,  D.  .  . 
Dale,  R.  .  .  . 
Dallas,  G-.  M.  . 
Dana,  R.  II.  .  . 
Dana,  R.  H.  jr. 
Dargon,  G.  W.  . 
Davis,  Isaac  .  . 
Davis,  John  .  . 
Dawes,  Rufus  . 
Dawson,  J.  L.  . 
Dawson,  W.  C.  . 
Dayton,  W.  L.  . 
Dearborn,  H.  A. 
Decatur,  S.  .  . 
DeKay,  Jas.  E. 
DeQuincy,  T.  . 
Dewey,  Orville  . 
Dickens,  C.  .  . 
Dickinson,  D.  S. 
Dickinson,  M.  . 
Dixon,  A.  .  .  . 
Dix,  John  A.  .  . 
Dorr,  T.  W.  .  . 
Douglas,  S.  A.  . 
Dow,  Neal  .  . 
Drake,  S.  G.  .  . 
Dudley,  J.  .  . 
Dudley,  Thomas 
D wight,  T.  .  . 
Eaton,  H.  .  .  . 
Edgar  ton,  S.  C. 
Edgeworth,  M.  . 
Edwards,  J .  .  . 
Edwards,  Justin 
Elgin,  Lord  .  . 
Eliot,  John  .  . 
Ellery,  William 
Ellsworth,  0.  . 
Embury,  E.  C.  . 
Emerson,  R.  W. 
Emmet,  T.  A.  . 
Endieott,  J.  .  . 


PAGE 

.  435  I 
.  439  | 
.  427 
.418  | 
.  417 
.452 
.  430 
.  415 
.  431 
.418 
.  442 
.  421 


.  438  I 
.  416 
.  426 
.  437 
.  438 
.  437 
.  414 
.  411 
.  431 
.  448 
.  438 
.  411 
.  419 
.  440 
.  441 
.  438 
.  418 
.  413 
.  434 
\  446 
.  429 
.  439 
.  419 
.  433 
.  451 
.  427 
.  447 
.  420 
.  426 
.  439 
.  444 
.  443 
.  423 
.  449 
.  429 
.  421 
.  428 
.  441 
.  453 
.  415 
.  384 
.  410 
.  410 
.  428 
.  445 
.  443 


Ericsson,  J.  . 
Eustis,  William 
Evans,  George 
Everett,  A.  H\ 
Everett,  E.  . 
Ewing,  T.  .  . 
Farmer,  John 
Fairbanks,  E. 
Fairfield,  John 
Faraday,  M.  . 
Fay,  T.  S.  .  . 
Felch,  A.  .  . 
Felton,  C.  C.  . 
Fessenden,  T.  G 
Fields,  James  T 
Fillmore,  M.  . 
Fitch,  J.    .  . 
Fletcher,  R.  . 
Floyd,  William 
Follen,  C.  .  . 
Foot,  Solomon 
Force,  Peter, 
Forsyth,  John 
Fort,  G.  F.  . 
Franklin,  B.  . 
Frelinghuysen,  T. 
Fremont,  J.  C. 
Frost,  John  . 
Frothingham,  R 
Fry,  Elizabeth 
Fulton,  Robert 
Fuller,  S.  .  . 
Gadsden,  C.  . 
Gage,  Thomas 
Gaines,  E.  P. 
Gardner,  Henry 
Gates,  Horatio 
Gallatin,  A.  . 
Gallaudet,  T.  II 
Gentry,  M.  P. 
Gerry,  E.  .  . 
Giddings,  J.  R 
Gilchrist,  J.  J. 
Giles,  Henry  . 
Gore,  C.     .  . 
Gorges,  F.  .  . 
Gough,  J.  B. 
Gould,  H.  F. 
Graham,  J.  R.  G 
Graham,  W.  A. 
Granger,  G.  . 
Grant,  Moses 
Grattan,  Henry 
Greely,  Horace 
Greene,  C.  G. 
Greene,  N.  . 
Greenleaf,  S. 
Greenwood,  (a. 
Grennell,  G., . 


PAG3 

.  448 
.  428 
.  434 
.  423 
.429 
.  440 
.434 
.  448 
.  434 
.430 
.  419 
.  436 
.  437 
.430 
.  428 
.431 
.437 
.  438 
.  386 
.  424 
.  417 
.  442 
.  421 
.  447 
.  389 
.  429 
.  454 
.  428 
.  422 
.438 
.  432 
.  436 
.  436 
.  444 
.  414 
.  412 
.  434 
.  409 
.  426 
.  452 
.  383 
.424 
.  437 


446 
453 
445 
425 
419 
428 
440 
425 
423 
425 
423 
418 
445 
444 
421 


Grey,  .  .  . 
Grier,  R.  C. 
Grinnell,  J. 
Griswold,  R.  W, 
Grundy,  F.  . 
Gwinnett,  B. 
Habersham,  J. 
Hale,  John  P. 
Hall,  Anna  M. 
Hall,  Lyman  . 
Hall,  S.  C.  . 
Hal  lam,  Henry 
Halleck,  Fitz  G 
Hallett,  B.  F. 
Halliburton,  T.  C, 
Hamersley,  W.  J. 
Hamilton,  A.  . 
Hamilton,  John 
Hamlin,  H.  . 
Hancock,  John 
Harper,  James 
Harper,  R.  G. 


Harrison,  Benjamin  .  387 
Harrison,  W.  H.  .  .  410 
Hart,  John  ....  388 
Hawes,  Joel  .  .  .  .417 
Hawthorne,  N.  .  .  .  454 
Hayne,  R.  Y.    .  .  .  419 

Haynes,  J  443 

Hemans,  F  440 

Hendrick,  G.  .  .  .  442 
Henry,  Patrick  .  .  .  409 
Henshaw,  D.  ...  429 
Hewes,  Joseph  .  .  .  388 
Hey  ward,  T.  jr.  .  .390 
Hibbard,  Harry    .  .  416 

Hildreth,  R  421 

Hill,  Isaac  ....  429 
Hillard,  C.  S.  .  .  .  415 
Hillhouse,  James  .  .416 
Hillhouse,  J.  A.  .  .  442 
Hilliard,  II.  W.  .  .  415 
Hinckley,  T.  ...  443 
Hitchcock,  E.    .  .  .  429 

Hoar,  S  445 

Hoffman,  0  410 

Holley,  H  441 

Holmes,  I.  E.  ...  454 
Holmos,  O.  W.  .  .  .420 
Hone,  Philip,  .  .  .431 
Hood,  Thomas,  .  .  .  413 
Hooper,  Win.    .  .  .388 

Hopkins,  E  412 

Hopkins,  M  430 

Hopkins,  S  384 

Hopkinson,  F.  .  .  .  388 

Houston,  S  422 

Howard,  J.  E.  .  .  .  445 
Howitt,  Mary   .  .  .432 


PAGB 

.  440 
.  440 
.448 
.  441 
.447 
.  390 
.448 
.  430 
.  420 
.  390 
.  416 
.447 
.  410 
.  442 
.  435 
.  420 
.  430 
.425 
.450 
.  383 
.  413 
.  439 


INDEX   TO  AUTOGRAPHS. 


XI 


Howitt,  Wm. 
Hubbard,  John 
Hull,  George 
Hull,  Issfiie,  . 
Humboldt, 
Humphreys,  D. 
Hunt,  Freeman 
Hunt,  Leigh  .  . 
Hunt,  W.  .  .  . 
Hunter,  R.  M.  T. 
Huntington,  S.  . 
Hutchinson,  T.  . 
Ingersoll,  J.  .  . 
Ingersoll,  J.  R. 
Ingraham,  E.  D. 
Ingraham,  J.  H. 
Ingham,  S.  D.  . 
Irving,  W.     .  . 
Jackson,  A.   .  . 
James,  G.  P.  R. 
Jay,  John  .  .  . 
Jefferson,  Thomas 
Jeffrey,  F.     .  . 
Jerrold,  D.    .  . 
Jesup,  T.  S.  .  . 
Johnson,  Cave  . 
Johnson,  R.  M. 
Jones,  J.  Paul  . 
Judson,  E.  C.  . 
Julian,  G.  W.  . 
Kelley,  A.     .  . 
Kellogg,  E.  H.  . 
Kelly,  A.  B.  .  . 
Kendall,  Amos, 
Kendrick,  G. 
Kennedy,  J.  P. 
Kent,  James  .  . 
King,  Preston  . 
King,  Rufus  .  . 
King,  T.  Starr  . 
King,  W.  R.  .  . 
Kirkland,  C.  M. 
Knapp,  S.  L.  .  . 
Knox,  Henry 
Kossuth,  Louia  . 
Lafayette,  .  .  . 
Lamartine,    .  . 
Laurens,  Henry 
Lawrence,  Abbott 
Lawrence,  Amos 
Leavitt,  Joshua 
Lee,  Francis  L. 
Lee,  Rich.  H. 
Legare,  H.  S. 
Leslie,  Eliza  . 
Leverett,  J.  . 
Lewis,  D.  H. 
Lewis,  Francis 
Linooln,  Levi 


385 
444 
441 
429 
438 
435 
434 
423 
413 
451 
430 
387 
445 
416 
427 
422 
414 
437 


410  Lincoln,  B.  . 
433 j  Lind,  Jenny  . 
445  Livingston,  E. 
414  Livingston,  W. 
417  !  Livingston,  P. 
43G  Locke,  J.   .  . 
422  Longfellow,  H. 
445  Lowell,  J.  R. 
426  Lumpkin,  W. 
450  Lyel!,  C.    .  . 
Lynch,  T.,  jr. 
Macaulay,  T.  B 
Macdonough,  J 
Mackintosh,  Jas 
Madison,  Jas. 
Maffit,  J.  N.  . 
Mallory,  S.  R. 
Mann,  Horace 
Mangum,  W.  P 
Marcy,  W.  L. 
Marion,  F. 
Marshall,  John 
Mather,  Cotton 
Mather,  I.  . 
Mathew,  T.  . 
Mazzini,  J.  . 
McLane,  L.  . 
McLean,  John 
448 1  Meagher,  T.  F. 
433  Melbourne,  . 


W 


452 
436 


Merrick,  P.  . 
Middleton,  A. 
424 1  Miller,  J.  W. 
431 1  Miller,  William 
442  M'Kean,T.  . 
420 \  Monroe,  James 
423  i  Montgomery,  J, 
435  \  Moore,  Thomas 
437  More,  Hannah 
414!Morehead,  J.  T 
424 1  Morgan,  D.  . 
428 1  Morris,  G.  P. 
410 ;  Morris,  Gouv. 
429  Morris,  Lewis 
409  Morris,  Robert 

422  Morton,  John 
450 !  Morton,  Marcus 
415  Morse,  S.  F.  B. 

423  Moultrie,  Wm. 
420  Murdoch,  J.  E. 

Murray,  John 
Murray,  L.  . 
Napoleon,  .  . 
Neal,  Alice  B. 
Neal,  John  . 
Nelson,  T.  jr. 
Niles,  John  M. 
North,    .  .  . 


434 
387 
387 
428 
413 
443 
432 
386 
435 


Norton,  A. 


pa;; 
449 
424 
411 
441 
386 
452 
409 
416 
434 
418 
390 
446 
450 
425 
413 
.  427 
,  452 
454 
,  450 
420 
453 
411 
435 
,  413 
,427 
417 
447 
421 
446 
448 
442 
390 
440 
415 
385 
432 
453 
427 
432 
429 
427 
414 
426 
368 
388 
389 
431 
414 
416 
441 
447 
412 
446 
440 
415 
387 
418 
450 
441 


O'Connell,  D. 
Osgood,  F.  S. 
Otis,  H.  G.  . 
Otis,  James  . 
Otis,  William  F. 
Paca,  William 
Pakenham,  R. 
Paine,  Robert  T. 
Paine,  C.    .  . 
Palfrey,  J.  G. 
Palmerston,  .' 
Park,  J.  C.  . 
Paruienter,  W. 
Parsons,  T.  . 
Paulding,  J.  K. 
Payne,  J.  H.  . 
Peabody,  A.  P. 
Peaslee,  C.  H. 
Peel,  Robert  . 
Penn,  John  . 
Penn,  Wm.  . 
Percival,  J.  G. 
Perkins,  T.  H. 
Petigru,  J.  L. 
Phillips,  S.  C. 
Phips,  W.  .  . 
Pickering,  T. 
Pierce,  F.  .  . 
Pierpont,  John 
Pitt,  William 
Poe,  Edgar  A. 
Poindexter,  G. 
Poinsett,  J.  R. 
Polk,  Jqmes  K. 
Porter,  J.  M. 
Powers,  J.  E. 
Pownall,  T.  . 
Preble,  E.  .  . 
Prence,  T.  .  . 
Prescott,  W.  H. 
Prescott,  W.  . 
Pulszky,  F.  . 
Pulszky,  T.  . 
Putnam,  Israel 
Quincy,  Josiah 
Quitman,  J.  A. 
Randolph,  John 
Rantoul,  R.  jr. 
Revere,  Paul 
Rhett,  R.  B.  , 
Ritchie,  Thomas 
Rives,  Win.  C. 
Rodney,  Caesar 
Rogers,  S.  .  . 
Ross,  George 
Rush,  Benj.  . 
Rush,  R.    .  . 
Rusk,  T.  L.  . 
Kussoll,  Beuj. 


XII 


INDEX  TO  AUTOGRAPHS. 


PAGE 

PAGE 

Washington,  G. 

PAGE 

.  409 

Kussell,  John    .  . 

.  447 

.  387 

Washburn,  Emory 

.  424 

Stone,  Thomas  .  . 

.  386 

Washington,  M.  . 

.  417 

Story,  Joseph    .  . 

.  435 

Watts,  Isaac     .  . 

.  447 

Saltonstall,  L.   .  . 

.  454 

Stowe,  H.  B.     .  . 

.  449 

Wayne,  A.    .  .  . 

.  454 

Santa  Anna   .  .  . 

.  447 

Strong,  Caleb    .  . 

.  440 

Sargent,  Epes    .  . 

.  428 

.  433 

.  414 

Sawtelle,  Cullen  . 

.  412 

Stuart,  Gilbert  .  . 

.  411 

Webb,  Jas.  W.  .  . 

.  432 

Saxe,  John  G.  .  . 

.  410 

Stuart,  Moses    .  . 

.  419 

Schoolcraft,  H.  R. 

.  43G 

Webster,  Noah  .  . 

.  423 

Scott,  Walter    .  . 

.  430 

Weld,  H.  H.  .  .  . 

.  426 

Scott,  Winfield  .  . 

.  420 

Wellington,    .  .  . 

.  447 

Seaton,  W.  W.  .  . 

.  414 

"Wellington,  A.  S. 

.  451 

Seabrook,  W.  13.  . 

.  450 

Tallmadge,  N.  P. 

.  409 

Sedgwick,  CM.  . 

.  414 

Wesley,  John   .  . 

.  428 

Sergeant,  John 

.  433 

Taylor,  Bayard 

.  413 

West,  B  

.  438 

Sewall,  Samuel 

.  433 

Taylor,  Zachary  . 
Thackeray,  W.  M. 

.  429 

Seward,  W.  H.  .  . 

.  413 

.  447 

Whipple,  Win.  ■»  . 

.  384 

Seymour,  T.  H.  . 

.  430 

Thomas,  Isaiah  .  . 

.  430 

Whitefield,  G.   .  . 

.  410 

Sharp,  D  

.  446 

Thomas,  R.  B.  .  . 

.  430 

Whittier,  J.  G. 

.  432 

Shaw,  Lemuel  .  . 

.  436 

Thornton,  M.    .  . 

.  384 

Whittcmore,  T.  . 

.  451 

.  385 

Whittlesey,  E.  .  . 

.  452 

Shields,  James  .  . 

.  431 

Toombs,  Robert  . 

.  432 

WickliSe.C.  A.  . 

.  423 

Wilberforce,  W.  . 

.  433 

Shube,  S  

.  444 

Toucey,  Isaac   .  . 
Trumbull,  John  . 

.  412 

Si^ourney,  L.  H. 

.  431 

.  425 

AYilliams,  W.    .  . 

.  385 

Silliman,  Benj. 
Simins,  W.  G.   .  . 
Smalley,  D.  A. 
Smith,  Gerritt  .  . 

.  409 

Trumbull,  Jos.  .  . 

.  411 

Willis,  N.  P.     .  . 

.  426 

.  414 

.  451 

Tupper,  M.  F.  .  . 

.  421 

Wilmot,  David  .  . 

.  410 

.  433 

Tyler,  John   .  .  . 

.  416 

Wilson,  A.     .  .  . 

.  436 

Smith,  John  C.  .  . 

.  434 

Upham,  Win.    .  . 

.  419 

Wilson,  Henry  .  . 
Wilson,  James   .  . 

.  442 

Smith,  Seba  .  .  . 

.  417 

Van  Buren,  J.  .  . 

.  389 

.  412 

Soule,  Pierre    *.  . 

.  431 

Van  Buren,  M.  .  . 

.  415 

Winslow,  Josiah  . 

.  443 

Southard,  S.  L. 

.  437 

Arane,  II  

.  443 

Winthrop,  R.  C.  . 

.  416 

Southey,  Robert  . 

.  418 

Vanderlyn,  J.   .  . 

.  418 

Winthrop,  J.     .  . 

.  443 

Sparks,  Jarcd   .  . 

.  413 

Van  JSfess,  C.  P.  . 

.  448 

Wirt,  William,  .  . 

.  409 

Spencer,  J.  A.  .  . 

.  451 

Verplanck,  G.  C.  . 

.  446 

Wise,  Henry  A. 

.  435 

Witherspoon,  J. 

.  387 

Walker,  Amasa  . 

.  416 

Wolcott,  Oliver  .  . 

.  385 

Sprague,  W.  B.  . 
Spurzheim,    .  .  . 

.  449 

Walker,  R.  J.   .  . 

.  425 

Woodbury,  L.    .  . 

.  422 

431 

Walley,  S.  H.    .  . 

440 

Woods,  Leonard 

.  415 

.  391 

Wool,  John  E.  .  . 

.  435 

Stark,  John  .  .  . 

.  416 

Wal worth,  R.  H.  . 

.  451 

Worcester,  J.  E.  . 

.  430 

Steele,  J.  H.     .  . 

.  445 

Ware,  W  

.  420 

Wordsworth,  W.  . 

.  425 

Stephens,  J.  L. 

.  440 

Wright,  S.  jr.  . 

.417 

Steuben,  Baron  de 

.  437 

.  436 

SPECIMENS 

OF 

AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


IN  COMMEMORATION  OF  THE  FIRST  SETTLEMENT  OF  NEW 
ENGLAND.  —  D.  Webster. 

Let  us  rejoice  that  we  behold  this  day !  Let  us  be  thankful 
t.nat  we  have  lived  to  see  the  bright  and  happy  breaking  cf  the 
auspicious  morn  which  commences  the  third  century  cf  the  history 
of  New  England!  Auspicious,  indeed,  —  bringing  a  happiness 
beyond  the  common  allotment  of  Providence  to  men,  full  of  pres- 
ent joy,  and  gilding  with  bright  beams  the  prospect  of  futurity,  — 
is  the  dawn  that  awakens  us  to  the  commemoration  of  the  landing 
of  the  Pilgrims. 

Living  at  an  epoch  which,  naturally  marks  the  progress  of  the 
history  of  our  native  land,  we  have  come  hither  to  celebrate  the 
great  event  with  which  that  history  commenced.  Forever  hon- 
ored be  this,  the  place  of  our  fathers'  refuge !  Forever  remem- 
bered the  day  which  saw  them,  weary  and  distressed,  broken  in 
everything  but  spirit,  poor  in  all  but  faith  and  courage,  at  last 
secure  from  the  dangers  of  wintry  seas,  and  impressing  this  shore 
with  the  first  footsteps  of  civilized  man  ! 

"We  have  come  to  this  rock  to  record  here  our  homage  for  our 
Pilgrim  Fathers  ;  our  sympathy  in  their  sufferings,  our  gratitude 
for  their  labors,  our  admiration  of  their  virtues,  our  veneration 
for  their  piety,  and  our  attachment  to  those  principles  of  civil  and 
religious  liberty,  which  thev  encountered  the  dangers  of  the  ocean, 
2 


14 


SPECIMENS  OF 


the  storms  of  heaven,  the  violence  of  savages,  disease,  exile  and 
famine,  to  enjoy  and  to  establish.  And  we  would  leave  here,  also, 
for  the  generations  which  are  rising  up  rapidly  to  fill  our  places, 
some  proof  that  we  have  endeavored  to  transmit  the  great  inherit- 
ance unimpaired;  that  in  our  estimate  of  public  principles  and 
private  virtue,  in  our  veneration  of  religion  and  piety,  in  our  devo- 
tion to  civil  and  religious  liberty,  in  our  regard  to  whatever 
advances  human  knowledge  or  improves  human  happiness,  we  are 
not  altogether  unworthy  of  our  origin. 

There  is  a  local  feeling  connected  with  this  occasion,  too  strong 
to  be  resisted,  —  a  sort  of  genius  of  the  place,  which  inspires  and 
awes  us.  We  feel  that  we  are  on  the  spot  where  the  first  scene 
of  our  history  was  laid ;  where  the  hearths  and  altars  of  New  Eng- 
land were  first  placed ;  where  Christianity,  and  civilization,  and 
letters,  made  their  first  lodgment,  in  a  vast  extent  of  country,  cov- 
ered with  a  wilderness,  and  peopled  by  roving  barbarians.  We 
are  here  at  the  season  of  the  year  at  which  the  event  took  place. 
The  imagination  irresistibly  and  rapidly  draws  around  us  the  prin- 
cipal features  and  the  leading  characters  in  the  original  scene. 
We  cast  our  eyes  abroad  on  the  ocean,  and  we  see  where  the  little 
bark,  with  the  interesting  group  upon  its  deck,  made  its  slow  pro- 
gress to  the  shore.  We  look  around  us,  and  behold  the  hills  and 
promontories  where  the  anxious  eyes  of  our  fathers  first  saw  the 
places  of  habitation  and  of  rest.  We  feel  the  cold  which  benumbed 
and  listen  to  the  winds  which  pierced  them.  Beneath  us  is  the 
rock  on  which  New  England  received  the  feet  of  the  Pilgrims. 
We  seem  even  to  behold  them,  as  they  struggle  with  the  elements, 
and,  with  toilsome  efforts,  gain  the  shore.  We  listen  to  the  chiefs 
in  counsel ;  we  see  the  unexampled  exhibition  of  female  fortitude 
and  resignation  ;  we  hear  the  whisperings  of  youthful  impatience, 
and  we  see,  what  a  painter  of  our  own  has  also  represented  by  his 
pencil,  chilled  and  shivering  childhood,  houseless  but  for  a  mother's 
arms,  couchless  but  for  a  mother's  breast,  till  our  own  blood  almost 
freezes.  The  mild  dignity  of  Carver,  and  of  Bradford ;  the  deci- 
sive and  soldier-like  air  and  manner  of  Standish  ;  the  devout  Brews- 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


15 


ter ;  the  enterprising  Allerton  ;  the  general  firmness  and  thought- 
fulness  of  the  whole  band ;  their  conscious  joy  for  dangers  escaped, 
their  deep  solicitude  about  dangers  to  come,  their  trust  in  Heaven, 
their  high  religious  faith,  full  of  confidence  and  anticipations,  all 
of  these  seem  to  belong  to  this  place,  and  to  be  present  upon  this 
occasion,  to  fill  us  with  reverence  and  admiration. 

The  hours  of  this  day  are  rapidly  flying,  and  this  occasion  will 
soon  be  past.  Neither  we  nor  our  children  can  expect  to  behold 
its  return.  They  are  in  the  distant  regions  of  futurity,  they  exist 
only  in  the  all-creating  power  of  God,  who  shall  stand  here,  a  hun- 
dred years  hence,  to  trace,  through  us,  their  descent  from  the  Pil- 
grims, and  to  survey,  as  we  have  now  surveyed,  the  progress  of 
their  country,  during  the  lapse  of  a  century.  We  would  anticipate 
their  concurrence  with  us  in  our  sentiments  of  deep  regard  for  our 
common  ancestors.  We  would  anticipate  and  partake  the  pleasure 
with  which  they  will  then  recount  the  steps  of  New  England's 
advancement.  On  the  morning  of  that  day,  although  it  will  not 
disturb  us  in  our  repose,  the  voice  of  acclamation  and  gratitude, 
commencing  on  the  Rock  of  Plymouth,  shall  be  transmitted 
through  millions  of  the  sons  of  the  Pilgrims,  till  it  lose  itself  in 
the  murmurs  of  the  Pacific  seas. 

TVe  would  leave  for  the  consideration  of  those  who  shall  then 
occupy  our  places  some  proof  that  we  hold  the  blessings  trans- 
mitted from  our  fathers  in  just  estimation;  some  proof  of  our 
attachment  to  the  cause  of  good  government,  and  of  civil  and 
religious  liberty ;  some  proof  of  a  sincere  and  ardent  desire  to  pro- 
mote everything  which  may  enlarge  the  understandings  and 
improve  the  hearts  of  men.  And  when,  from  the  long  distance  of 
an  hundred  years,  they  shall  look  back  upon  us,  they  shall  know, 
at  least,  that  we  possessed  affections,  which,  running  backward, 
and  warming  with  gratitude  for  what  our  ancestors  have  done  for 
our  happiness,  run  forward  also  to  our  posterity,  and  meet  them 
with  cordial  salutation,  ere  yet  they  have  arrived  on  the  shore  of 
being. 

Advance,  then,  yc  future  generations !    We  would  hail  you,  as 


16 


SPECIMENS  OF 


you  rise  in  your  long  succession,  to  fill  the  places  which  we  now 
fill,  and  to  taste  the  blessings  of  existence,  where  we  are  passing, 
and  soon  shall  have  passed,  our  own  human  duration.  We  bid  you 
welcome  to  this  pleasant  land  of  the  fathers.  We  bid  you  welcome 
to  the  healthful  skies  and  the  verdant  fields  of  New  England.  We 
greet  your  accession  to  the  great  inheritance  which  we  have  enjoyed. 
We  welcome  you  to  the  blessings  of  good  government  and  religious 
liberty.  We  welcome  you  to  the  treasures  of  science  and  the 
delights  of  learning.  We  welcome  you  to  the  transcendent  sweets 
of  domestic  life,  to  the  happiness  of  kindred,  and  parents,  and  chil- 
dren. We  welcome  you  to  the  immeasurable  blessings  of  rational 
existence,  the  immortal  hope  of  Christianity,  and  the  light  of  ever- 
lasting truth ! 


THE  CONSEQUENCES  OF  DISUNION.  —  II.  Clay. 

I  have  been  accused  of  ambition  in  presenting  this  measure. 
Ambition  !  inordinate  ambition  !  If  I  had  thought  of  myself  only, 
I  should  have  never  brought  it  forward.  I  know  well  the  perils 
to  which  I  expose  myself ;  the  risk  of  alienating  faithful  and  valued 
friends,  with  but  little  prospect  of  making  new  ones,  if  any  new 
ones  could  compensate  for  the  loss  of  those  whom  we  have  long 
tried  and  loved,  —  and  the  honest  misconceptions  both  of  friends 
and  foes.  Ambition  !  If  I  had  listened  to  its  soft  and  seducing 
whispers,  if  I  had  yielded  myself  to  the  dictates  of  a  cold,  calculat- 
ing and  prudential  policy,  I  would  have  stood  still  and  unmoved. 
I  might  even  have  silently  gazed  on  the  raging  storm,  enjoyed  its 
loudest  thunders,  and  left  those  who  are  charged  with  the  care  of 
the  vessel  of  state  to  conduct  it  as  they  could.  I  have  been  here- 
tofore often  unjustly  accused  of  ambition.  Low,  grovelling  souls, 
who  are  utterly  incapable  of  elevating  themselves  to  the  higher  and 
nobler  duties  of  pure  patriotism,  —  beings  who,  forever  keeping  their 
own  selfish  aims  in  view,  decide  all  public  measures  by  their  pre- 
sumed infj  lence  on  their  aggrandizement, — judge  me  by  the  venal 
rule  which  they  prescribe  to  themselves.  I  have  given  to  the  wind:; 
those  false  accusations,  as  I  consign  that  which  now  impeaches  my 


\ 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


17 


motives.  I  have  no  desire  for  office,  not  even  the  highest.  The 
most  exalted  is  but  a  prison,  in  which  the  incarcerated  incumbent 
daily  receives  his  cold,  heartless  visitants,  marks  his  weary  hours, 
and  is  cut  off  from  the  practical  enjoyment  of  all  the  blessings  of 
genuine  freedom.  I  am  no  candidate  for  any  office  in  the  gift  of 
the  people  of  these  states,  united  or  separated;  I  never  wish, 
never  expect  to  be.  Pass  this  bill,  tranquillize  the  country,  restore 
confidence  and  affection  in  the  Union,  and  I  am  willing  to  go 
home  to  Ashland,  and  renounce  public  service  forever.  I  should 
there  find,  in  its  groves,  under  its  shades,  on  its  lawns,  amidst  my 
flocks  and  herds,  in  the  bosom  of  my  family,  sincerity  and  truth, 
attachment,  and  fidelity,  and  gratitude,  which  I  have  not  always 
found  in  the  walks  of  public  life.  Yes,  I  have  ambition  ;  but  it  is 
the  ambition  of  being  the  humble  instrument,  in  the  hands  of  Prov- 
idence, to  reconcile  a  divided  people,  once  more  to  revive  concord 
and  harmony  in  a  distracted  land,  —  the  pleasing  ambition  of  con- 
templating the  glorious  spectacle  of  a  free,  united,  prosperous,  and 
fraternal  people ! 

South  Carolina  must  perceive  the  embarrassments  of  her  situa- 
tion. She  must  be  desirous  —  it  is  unnatural  to  suppose  that  she 
is  not  —  to  remain  in  the  Union. 

What !  a  state  whose  heroes  in  its  gallant  ancestry  fought  so 
many  glorious  battles  along  with  those  of  the  other  states  of  this 
Union,  —  a  state  with  which  this  confederacy  is  linked  by  bonds 
of  such  a  powerful  character ! 

I  have  sometimes  fancied  what  would  be  her  condition,  if  she  goes 
out  of  this  Union,  —  if  her  five  hundred  thousand  people  should  at 
once  be  thrown  upon  their  own  resources.  She  is  out  of  the  Union. 
What  is  the  consequence  ?  She  is  an  independent  power.  What 
then  does  she  do  ?  She  must  have  armies  and  fleets,  and  an  expens- 
ive government ;  have  foreign  missions ;  she  must  raise  taxes,  — 
enact  this  very  tariff,  which  had  driven  her  out  of  the  Union,  in 
order  to  enable  her  to  raise  money,  and  to  sustain  the  attitude  of 
an  independent  power.  If  she  should  have  no  force,  no  navy  to 
protect  her,  she  would  be  exposed  to  piratical  incursions.  Her 
neighbor,  St.  Domingo,  might  pour  down  a  horde  of  pirates  on  her 
2* 


18 


SPECIMENS  Off 


borders,  and  desolate  her  plantations.  She  must  have  her  embas- 
sies, —  therefore  must  she  have  a  revenue. 

But  I  will  not  dwell  on  this  topic  any  longer.  I  say  it  is  utterly 
impossible  that  South  Carolina  ever  desired,  for  a  moment,  to 
become  a  separate  and  independent  state.  I  would  repeat  that, 
under  all  the  circumstances  of  the  case,  the  condition  of  South  Car- 
olina is  only  one  of  the  elements  of  a  combination,  the  whole  of 
which  together  constitutes  a  motive  of  action  which  renders  it 
expedient  to  resort,  during  the  present  session  of  Congress,  to  some 
measure,  in  order  to  quiet  and  tranquillize  the  country. 

If  there  be  any  who  want  civil  war, —  who  want  to  see  the  blood 
of  any  portion  of  our  countrymen  spilt,  —  I  am  not  one  of  them.  I 
wish  to  see  war  of  no  kind ;  but,  above  all,  do  I  not  desire  to  see 
a  civil  war.  When  war  begins,  whether  civil  or  foreign,  no  human 
foresight  is  competent  to  foresee  when,  or  how,  or  where,  it  is  to 
terminate.  But,  when  a  civil  war  shall  be  lighted  up  in  the  bosom 
of  our  own  happy  land,  and  armies  are  marching,  and  commanders 
are  winning  their  victories,  and  fleets  are  in  motion  on  our  coast,  — 
tell  me,  if  you  can,  tell  me  if  any  human  being  can  tell,  its  dura- 
tion !    God  alone  knows  where  such  a  war  will  end  ! 


FROM  A  EULOGY  ON  LAFAYETTE.  —  E.  Everett. 

But  it  is  more  than  time,  fellow-citizens,  that  I  commit  the  mem- 
ory of  this  great  and  good  man  to  your  unprompted  contemplation. 
On  his  arrival  among  you,  ten  years  ago,  —  when  your  civil  fathers, 
your  military,  your  children,  your  whole  population,  poured  itself 
out,  as  one  throng,  to  salute  him,  —  when  your  cannons  proclaimed 
his  advent  with  joyous  salvos,  and  your  acclamations  were  responded 
from  steeple  to  steeple,  by  the  voice  of  festal  bells,  —  with  what 
delight  did  you  not  listen  to  his  cordial  and  affectionate  words : 
"  I  beg  of  you  all,  beloved  citizens  of  Boston,  to  accept  the  respect- 
ful and  warm  thanks  of  a  heart  which  has  for  nearly  half  a  century 
been  devoted  to  your  illustrious  city!"  That  noble  heart,  —  to 
which,  if  any  object  on  earth  was  dear,  that  object  was  the  counl  ry 


AMERICAN   EL0QUE1  CE. 


19 


of  his  early  choice,  of  his  adoption,  and  his  more  than  regai  tri- 
umph, —  that  noble  heart  will  beat  no  more  for  your  welfare. 
Cold  and  motionless,  it  is  already  mingling  with  the  dust.  While 
he  lived,  you  thronged  with  delight  to  his  presence  ;  you  gazed  with 
admiration  on  his  placid  features  and  venerable  form,  not  wholly 
unshaken  by  the  rude  storms  of  his  career ;  and  now  that  he  is 
departed,  you  have  assembled  in  this  cradle  of  the  liberties  for 
which,  with  your  fathers,  he  risked  his  life,  to  pay  the  last  honors 
to  his  memory.  You  have  thrown  open  these  consecrated  portals  to 
admit  the  lengthened  train,  which  has  come  to  discharge  the  last 
public  offices  of  respect  to  his  name.  You  have  hung  these  vener- 
able arches,  for  the  second  time  since  their  erection,  with  the  sable 
badges  of  sorrow.  You  have  thus  associated  the  memory  of 
Lafayette  in  those  distinguished  honors  which  but  a  few  years 
since  you  paid  to  your  Adams  and  Jefferson;  and,  could  your 
wishes  and  mine  have  prevailed,  my  lips  would  this  day  have  been 
mute,  and  the  same  illustrious  voice  which  gave  utterance  to  your 
filial  emotions  over  their  honored  graves  would  have  spoken  also  for 
you  over  him  who  shared  their  earthly  labors,  enjoyed  their  friend- 
ship, and  has  now  gone  to  share  their  last  repose,  and  their  imper- 
ishable remembrance. 

There  is  not,  throughout  the  world,  a  friend  of  liberty,  who  has 
not  dropped  his  head,  when  he  has  heard  that  Lafayette  is  no  more. 
Poland,  Italy,  Greece,  Spain,  Ireland,  the  South  American  repub- 
lics, —  every  country  where  man  is  struggling  to  recover  his  birth- 
right,—  has  lost  a  benefactor,  a  patron,  in  Lafayette.  But  you, 
young  men,  at  whose  command  I  speak,  —  for  you  a  bright  and 
particular  loadstar  is  henceforward  fixed  in  the  front  of  heaven. 
What  young  man  that  reflects  on  the  history  of  Lafayette,  —  that 
sees  him  in  the  morning  of  his  days  the  associate  of  sages,  the 
friend  of  Washington,  —  but  will  start  with  new  vigor  on  the  path 
of  duty  and  renown  ? 

And  what  was  it,  fellow-citizens,  which  gave  to  our  Lafayette 
his  spotless  fame  ?  The  love  of  liberty.  What  has  consecrated  his 
memory  in  the  hearts  of  good  men  ?  The  love  of  liberty.  What 
nerved  his  youthful  arm  with  strength,  and  inspired  him  in  the 


20 


SPECIMENS  OY 


morning  of  his  days  with  sagacity  and  counsel  ?  The  living  love 
of  liberty.  To  what  did  he  sacrifice  power,  and  rank,  and  country, 
and  freedom  itself?  To  the  horror  of  licentiousness,  to  the  sanc- 
tity of  plighted  faith,  to  the  love  of  liberty  protected  by  law. 
Thus  the  great  principle  of  your  Revolutionary  fathers,  of  your 
Pilgrim  sires,  —  the  great  principle  of  the  age,  —  was  the  rule  of 
his  life  :  The  love  of  liberty  protected  by  law. 

You  have  now  assembled  within  these  celebrated  walls  to  per- 
form the  last  duties  of  respect  and  love,  on  the  birth-day  of  your 
benefactor,  beneath  that  roof  which  has  resounded  of  old  with  the 
master  voices  of  American  renown.  The  spirit  of  the  departed  is 
in  high  communion  with  that  spirit  of  the  place  ;  the  temple,  worthy 
of  the  new  name  which  we  now  behold  inscribed  on  its  walls. 
Listen,  Americans,  to  the  lessons  which  seem  borne  to  us  on  the 
very  air  we  breathe,  while  we  perform  these  dutiful  rites  !  \Ye 
winds,  that  wafted  the  Pilgrims  to  the  land  of  promise,  fan  in 
their  children's  hearts  the  love  of  freedom !  Blood  which  our 
fathers  shed,  cry  from  the  ground!  Echoing  arches  of  this 
renowned  hall,  whisper  back  the  voices  of  other  days !  Glorious 
Washington,  break  the  long  silence  of  that  votive  canvas  !  —  speak, 
speak,  marble  lips !  —  teach  us  tiie  love  of  liberty  protected 
by  law  ! 


NEW  ENGLAND  AND  THE  UNION.  —  S.  S.  Prentiss. 

Glorious  New  England !  thou  art  still  true  to  thy  ancient 
fame,  and  worthy  of  thy  ancestral  honors.  On  thy  pleasant  val- 
leys rest,  like  sweet  dews  of  morning,  the  gentle  recollections  of 
our  early  life  ;  around  thy  hills  and  mountains  cling,  like  gather- 
ing mists,  the  mighty  memories  of  the  Revolution ;  and  far  away 
in  the  horizon  of  thy  past  gleam,  like  thy  own  bright  northern 
lights,  the  awful  virtues  of  our  Pilgrim  sires !  But,  while  we 
devote  this  day  to  the  remembrance  of  our  native  land,  we  forget 
not  that  in  which  our  happy  lot  is  cast.  We  exult  in  the  reflec- 
tion that,  though  we  count  by  thousands  the  miles  which  separate 
us  from  our  birth-place,  still  our  country  is  the  same.  We  are  no 
exiles  meeting  upon  the  banks  of  a  foreign  river?  to  swell  its  waters 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


21 


with  our  homesick  tears.  Here  floats  the  same  banner  which  rus- 
tled above  our  boyish  heads,  except  that  its  mighty  folds  are  wider, 
and  its  glittering  stars  increased  in  number. 

The  sons  of  New  England  are  found  in  every  state  of  the  broad 
republic.  In  the  east,  the  south,  and  the  unbounded  west,  their 
blood  mingles  freely  with  every  kindred  current.  We  have  but 
changed  our  chamber  in  the  paternal  mansion ;  in  all  its  rooms 
we  are  at  home,  and  all  who  inhabit  it  are  our  brothers.  To  us 
the  Union  has  but  one  domestic  hearth ;  its  household  gods  are  all 
the  same.  Upon  us,  then,  peculiarly  devolves  the  duty  of  feeding 
the  fires  upon  that  kindly  hearth,  of  guarding  with  pious  care 
those  sacred  household  gods. 

We  cannot  do  with  less  than  the  whole  Union ;  to  us  it  admits 
of  no  division.  In  the  veins  of  our  children  flows  northern  and 
southern  blood  :  how  shall  it  be  separated  ?  —  who  shall  put  asun- 
der the  best  affections  of  the  heart,  the  noblest  instincts  of  our 
nature  ?  We  love  the  land  of  our  adoption ;  so  do  we  that  of  our 
birth.  Let  us  ever  be  true  to  both,  and  always  exert  ourselves  in 
maintaining  the  unity  of  our  country,  the  integrity  of  the  republic. 

Accursed,  then,  be  the  hand  put  forth  to  loosen  the  golden  cord 
of  union !  thrice  accursed  the  traitorous  lips  which  shall  propose 
its  severance ! 


IN  MEMORY  OF  WASHINGTON.  — R.  C.  Winthrop. 

But,  fellow-citizens,  while  we  thus  commend  the  character  and 
example  of  Washington  to  others,  let  us  not  forget  to  imitate  it 
ourselves.  I  have  spoken  of  the  precise  period  which  we  have 
reached  in  our  own  history,  as  well  as  in  that  of  the  world  at  large, 
as  giving  something  of  peculiar  interest  to  the  proceedings  in  which 
we  are  engaged.  I  may  not,  I  will  net,  disturb  the  harmony  of 
the  scene  before  me,  by  the  slightest  allusion  of  a  party  character. 
The  circumstances  of  the  occasion  forbid  it ;  the  associations  of  the 
day  forbid  it ;  the  character  of  him  in  whose  honor  we  are  assem- 
bled forbids  it ;  my  own  feelings  revolt  from  it.  But  I  may  say, 
I  must  say,  and  every  one  within  the  sound  of  my  voice  will  sus- 


22 


SPECIMENS  OF 


tain  me  in  saying,  that  there  has  been  ho  moment  since  Washing* 
ton  himself  was  among  us  when  it  was  more  important  than  at 
this  moment  that  the  two  great  leading  principles  of  his  policy 
should  be  remembered  and  cherished. 

Those  principles  were,  first,  the  most  complete,  cordial,  and 
indissoluble  Union  of  the  States ;  and,  second,  the  most  entire  sepa- 
ration and  disentanglement  of  our  own  country  from  all  other  coun- 
tries. Perfect  union  among  ourselves,  perfect  neutrality  towards 
others,  and  peace,  peace,  domestic  peace  and  foreign  peace,  as  the 
result,  —  this  was  the  chosen  and  consummate  policy  of  the  Father 
of  his  Country. 

But,  above  all,  and  before  all,  in  the  heart  of  "Washington,  was 
the  Union  of  the  States ;  and  no  opportunity  was  ever  omitted  by 
him  to  impress  upon  his  fellow-citizens  the  profound  sense  which 
he  entertained  of  its  vital  importance  at  once  to  their  prosperity 
and  their  liberty. 

In  that  incomparable  address  in  which  he  bade  farewell  to  his 
countrymen  at  the  close  of  his  presidential  service,  he  touched  upon 
many  other  topics  with  the  earnestness  of  a  sincere  conviction. 
He  called  upon  them,  in  solemn  terms,  to  "  cherish  public  credit ;  " 
to  "  observe  good  faith  and  justice  towards  all  nations,"  avoiding 
both  "inveterate  antipathies  and  passionate  attachments"  towards 
any ;  to  mitigate  and  assuage  the  unquenchable  fire  of  party  spirit, 
"  lest,  instead  of  warming,  it  should  consume ;  "  to  abstain  from 
"  characterizing  parties  by  geographical  distinctions ; "  "  to  promote 
institutions  for  the  general  diffusion  of  knowledge ;  "  to  respect 
and  uphold  "  religion  and  morality,  those  great  pillars  of  human 
happiness,  those  firmest  props  of  the  duties  of  men  and  of  citizens." 

But  what  can  exceed,  what  can  equal,  the  accumulated  intensity 
of  thought  and  of  expression  with  which  he  calls  upon  them  to  cling 
to  the  Union  of  the  States.  "  It  is  of  infinite  moment,"  says 
he,  in  language  which  we  ought  never  to  be  weary  of  hearing  or 
of  repeating,  "  that  you  should  properly  estimate  the  immense  value 
of  your  national  union  to  your  collective  and  individual  happiness; 
that  you  should  cherish  a  cordial,  habitual,  immovable  attachment 
to  it ;  accustoming  yourselves  to  think  and  speak  of  it  as  of  the  pal- 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


23 


ladium  of  your  political  mfety  and  prosperity,  watching  for  its  pres- 
ervation with  jealous  anxiety,  discountenancing  whatever  may  sug- 
gest even  a  suspicion  that  it  can  in  any  event  be  abandoned,  and 
indignantly  frowning  upon  the  first  dawning  of  every  attempt  to 
alienate  any  portion  of  our  country  from  the  rest,  or  to  enfeeble 
the  sacred  ties  which  now  link  together  the  various  parts." 

The  Union  —  the  Union  in  any  event  —  was  thus  the  sentiment 
cf  Washington.  The  Union  —  the  JJnion  in  any  event  —  let  it 
be  our  sentiment  this  day  ! 

Yes,  to-day,  fellow-citizens,  at  the  very  moment  when  the  exten- 
sion of  our  boundaries  and  the  multiplication  of  our  territories  are 
producing,  directly  and  indirectly,  among  the  different  members  of 
our  political  system,  so  many  marked  and  mourned  centrifugal 
tendencies,  let  us  seize  this  occasion  to  renew  to  each  other  our 
vows  of  allegiance  and  devotion  to  the  American  Union,  and  let 
us  recognize  in  our  common  title  to  the  name  and  the  fame  of 
Washington,  and  in  our  common  veneration  for  his  example  and 
his  advice,  the  all-sufficient  centripetal  power  which  shall  hold  the 
thick-clustering  stars  of  our  confederacy  in  one  glorious  constella- 
tion forever !  Let  the  column  which  we  are  about  to  construct  be  at 
once  a  pledge  and  an  emblem  of  perpetual  union !  Let  the  found- 
ations be  laid,  let  the  superstructure  be  built  up  and  cemented,  let 
each  stone  be  raised  and  riveted,  in  a  spirit  of  national  brother- 
hood !  And  may  the  earliest  ray  of  the  rising  sun  —  till  that  sun 
shall  set  to  rise  no  more  —  draw  forth  frc|n  it  daily,  as  from  the 
fabled  statue  of  antiquity,  a  strain  of  national  harmony,  which 
shall  strike  a  responsive  chord  in  every  heart  throughout  the 
republic ! 

Proceed,  then,  fellow-citizens,  with  the  work  for  which  you 
have  assembled!  Lay  the  corner-stone  of  a  monument  which 
shall  adequately  bespeak  the  gratitude  of  the  whole  American 
people  to  the  illustrious  Father  of  his  Country !  Build  it  to  the 
skies ;  you  cannot  outreach  the  loftiness  of  his  principles  !  Found 
it  upon  the  massive  and  eternal  rock ;  you  cannot  make  it  more 
enduring  than  his  fame  !  Construct  it  of  the  peerless  Parian  mar- 
ble ;  you  cannot  make  it  purer  than  his  life !    Exhaust  upon  it 


24 


SPECIMENS  OF 


the  rules  and  principles  of  ancient  and  of  modern  art ;  you  cannot 
make  it  more  proportionate  than  his  character  ! 

But  let  not  your  homage  to  his  memory  end  here.  Think  not 
to  transfer  to  a  tablet  or  a  column  the  tribute  which  is  due  from 
yourselves.  J ust  honor  to  Washington  can  only  be  rendered  by 
observing  his  precepts  and  imitating  his  example.  Similitudine 
decoremus.  He  has  built  his  own  monument.  We,  and  those 
who  come  after  us  in  successive  generations,  are  its  appointed,  its 
privileged  guardians.  This  wide-spread  republic  is  the  true  monu- 
ment to  Washington.  Maintain  its  independence.  Uphold  its 
constitution.  Preserve  its  union.  Defend  its  liberty.  Let  it 
stand  before  the  world  in  all  its  original  strength  and  beauty, 
securing  peace,  order,  equality  and  freedom,  to  all  within  its  bound- 
aries, and  shedding  light  and  hope  and  joy  upon  the  pathway  of 
human  liberty  throughout  the  world,  —  and  "Washington  needs  no 
other  monument.  Other  structures  may  fitly  testify  our  venera- 
tion for  him :  this,  this  alone,  can  adequately  illustrate  his  services 
to  mankind. 

Nor  does  he  need  even  this.  The  republic  may  perish ;  the 
wide  arch  of  our  ranged  Union  may  fall ;  star  by  star  its  glories 
may  expire ;  stone  after  stone  its.  columns  and  its  capitol  may 
moulder  and  crumble ;  all  other  names  which  adorn  its  annals  may 
be  forgotten ;  but,  as  long  as  human  hearts  shall  anywhere  pant, 
or  human  tongues  shall  anywhere  plead,  for  a  true,  rational,  con- 
stitutional liberty,  those  hearts  shall  enshrine  the  memory,  and 
those  tongues  shall  prolong  the  fame,  of  George  Washington  ! 


SORROW  FOR  THE  DEAD.  —  W.  Irving. 

Sorrow  for  the  dead  is  the  only  sorrow  from  which  we  refuse  to 
be  divorced.  Every  other  wound  we  seek  to  heal,  every  other 
affliction  to  forget ;  but  this  wound  we  consider  it  a  duty  to  keep 
open,  this  affliction  we  cherish  and  brood  over  in  solitude.  Where 
is  the  mother  that  would  willingly  forget  the  infant  that  perished 
like  a  blossom  from  her  arms,  though  every  recollection  is  a  pang  ? 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


25 


Where  is  the  child  that  would  willingly  forget  the  most  tender  of 
parents,  though  to  remember  be  but  to  lament  ?  Who,  even  in  the 
hour  of  agony,  would  forget  the  friend  over  whom  he  mourns 2 
Who,  even  when  the  tomb  is  closing  upon  the  remains  of  her  he 
most  loved,  and  he  feels  his  heart,  as  it  were,  crushed  in  the  closing 
of  its  portal,  would  accept  consolation-  that  was  to  be  bought  by 
forgetfulness  ?  No !  the  love  which  survives  the  tomb  is  one  of 
the  noblest  attributes  of  the  soul.  If  it  has  its  woes,  it  has  like- 
wise its  delights ;  and,  when  the  overwhelming  burst  of  grief  is 
calmed  into  the  gentle  tear  of  recollection,  when  the  sudden 
anguish  and  the  convulsive  agony  over  the  present  ruins  of  all  that 
we  most  loved  is  softened  away  into  pensive  meditation  on  all  that 
it  was  in  the  days  of  its  loveliness,  who  would  root  out  such  a  sor- 
row from  the  heart  ?  Though  it  may  sometimes  throw  a  passing 
cloud  even  over  the  bright  hour  of  gayety,  or  spread  a  deeper  sad- 
ness over  the  hour  of  gloom,  yet  who  would  exchange  it  even  for 
the  song  of  pleasure  or  the  burst  of  revelry  ?  No !  there  is  a 
voice  from  the  tomb  sweeter  than  song ;  there  is  a  recollection  of 
the  dead  to  which  we  turn  even  from  the  charms  of  the  living.  0, 
the  grave  !  the  grave !  It  buries  every  error,  covers  every  defect, 
extinguishes  every  resentment.  From  its  peaceful  bosom  spring 
none  but  fond  regrets  and  tender  recollections.  Who  can  look 
down  upon  the  grave  even  of  an  enemy,  and  not  feel  a  compunc- 
tious throb,  that  ever  he  should  have  warred  with  the  poor  handful 
of  earth  that  lies  mouldering  before  him  ? 

The  grave  of  those  we  loved  —  what  a  place  for  meditation! 
There  it  is  that  we  call  up  in  long  review  the  whole  history  of 
virtue  and  gentleness,  and  the  thousand  endearments  lavished  upon 
us  almost  unheeded  in  the  daily  intercourse  of  intimacy;  there  it 
is  that  we  dwell  upon  the  tenderness,  the  solemn,  awful  tenderness, 
of  the  parting  scene :  the  bed  of  death,  with  all  its  stifled  griefs , 
its  noiseless  attendance ;  its  mute,  watchful  assiduities ;  the  last 
testimonies  of  expiring  love;  the  feeble,  fluttering,  thrilling  (0, 
how  thrilling!)  pressure  of  the  hand;  the  last. fond  look  of  the 
glazing  eye,  turning  upon  us  even  from  the  threshold  of  existence ; 
3 


26 


SPECIMENS  OF 


the  faint,  faltering  accents,  struggling  in  death  to  give  one  more 
assurance  of  affection ! 

Ay,  go  to  the  grave  of  buried  love,  and  meditate  !  There  settle 
the  account  with  thy  conscience  for  every  past  benefit  unrequited, 
every  past  endearment  unregarded,  of  that  being  who  can  never, 
never,  never  return,  to  be  soothed  by  thy  contrition ! 

If  thou  art  a  child,  and  hast  ever  added  a  sorrow  to  the  soul  or 
a  furrow  to  the  silvered  brow  of  an  affectionate  parent ;  if  thou 
art  a  husband,  and  hast  ever  caused  the  fond  bosom,  that  ventured 
its  whole  happiness  in  thy  arms,  to  doubt  one  moment  of  thy  kind- 
ness or  thy  truth ;  if  thou  art  a  friend,  and  hast  ever  wronged  in 
thought,  word  or  deed,  the  spirit  that  generously  confided  in  thee ; 
if  thou  art  a  lover,  and  hast  ever  given  one  unmerited  pang  to  that 
true  heart  that  now  lies  cold  and  still  beneath  thy  feet ;  —  then 
be  sure  that  every  unkind  look,  every  ungracious  word,  every 
ungentle  action,  will  come  thronging  back  upon  thy  memory,  and 
knocking  dolefully  at  thy  soul ;  then  be  sure  that  thou  wilt  lie 
down  sorrowing  and  repentant  on  the  grave,  and  utter  the  unheard 
groan,  and  pour  the  unavailing  tear,  —  more  deep,  more  bitter, 
because  unheard  and  unavailing. 

Then  weave  thy  chaplet  of  flowers,  and  strew  the  beauties  of 
nature  about  the  grave ;  console  thy  broken  spirit,  if  thou  canst, 
with  these  tender,  yet  futile  tributes  of  regret ;  but  take  warning 
by  the  bitterness  of  this  thy  contrite  affliction  over  the  dead,  and 
be  more  faithful  and  affectionate  in  the  discharge  of  thy  duties  to 
the  living ! 


REPUBLICS.  —  H.  S.  Lcgard. 

The  name  of  republic  is  inscribed  upon  the  most  imperishable 
monuments  of  the  species ;  and  it  is  probable  that  it  will  continue 
to  be  associated,  as  it  has  been  in  all  past  ages,  with  whatever  is 
heroic  in  character,  and  sublime  in  genius,  and  elegant  and  bril- 
liant in  the  cultivation  of  arts  and  letters.  It  wrould  not  be  diffi- 
cult to  prove  that  the  base  hirelings  who  have  so  industriously 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


27 


inculcated  a  contrary  doctrine  have  been  compelled  to  falsify  his- 
tory and  abuse  reason. 

It  might  be  asked,  triumphantly,  what  land  has  ever  been  visited 
with  the  influences  of  liberty,  that  has  not  flourished  like  the 
spring  ?  What  people  has  ever  worshipped  at  her  altars,  without 
kindling  with  a  loftier  spirit,  and  putting  forth  more  noble  ener- 
gies ?  Where  has  she  ever  acted,  that  her  deeds  have  not  been 
heroic  ?  Where  has  she  ever  spoken,  that  her  eloquence  has  not 
been  triumphant  and  sublime  ? 

With  respect  to  ourselves,  would  it  not  be  enough  to  say  that  we 
live  under  a  form  of  government  and  in  a  state  of  society  to  which 
the  world  has  never  yet  exhibited  a  parallel  ?  Is  it,  then,  nothing 
to  be  free  ?  How  many  nations,  in  the  whole  annals  of  human 
kind,  have  proved  themselves  worthy  of  being  so  ?  Is  it  nothing 
that  we  are  republicans  ?  Were  all  men  as  enlightened,  as  brave, 
as  proud,  as  they  ought  to  be,  would  they  suffer  themselves  to  be 
insulted  with  any  other  title  ?  Is  it  nothing,  that  so  many  inde- 
pendent sovereignties  should  be  held  together  in  such  a  confederacy 
as  ours  ?  What  does  history  teach  us  of  the  difficulty  of  institut- 
ing and  maintaining  such  a  polity,  and  of  the  glory  that,  of  conse- 
quence, ought  to  be  given  to  those  who  enjoy  its  advantages  in  so 
much  perfection  and  on  so  grand  a  scale  ?  For,  can  anything  be 
more  striking  and  sublime  than  the  idea  of  an  imperial  republic, 
spreading  over  an  extent  of  territory  more  immense  than  the  empire 
of  the  Caesars  in  the  accumulated  conquests  of  a  thousand  years 
—  without  prefects  or  proconsuls  or  publicans  —  founded  in  the 
maxims  of  common  sense  —  employing  within  itself  no  arms  but 
those  of  reason  —  and  known  to  its  subjects  only  by  the  blessings 
it  bestows  or  perpetuates,  yet  capable  of  directing,  against,  a  foreign 
foe,  all  the  energies  of  a  military  despotism,  —  a  republic,  in  which 
men  are  completely  insignificant,  and  principles  and  laws  exercise, 
throughout  its  vast  dominion,  a  peaceful  and  irresistible  sway, 
blending  in  one  divine  harmony  such  various  habits  and  conflicting 
opinions,  and  mingling  in  our  institutions  the  light  of  philosophy 
with  all  that  is  dazzling  in  the  associations  of  heroic  achievement, 
and  extended  domination,  and  deep-seated  and  formidable  power ! 


28 


Sl'KClMKNS  OF 


THE  DEATH  OF  WASHINGTON  R.  T.  Paine. 

Having  accomplished  the  embassy  of  a  benevolent  Providence, 
Washington,  the  founder  of  one  nation,  the  sublime  instructor  of 
all,  took  his  flight  to  heaven ;  —  not  like  Mahomet,  for  his  memory 
is  immortal  without  the  fiction  of  a  miracle ;  not  like  Elijah,  for 
recording  time  has  not  registered  the  man  on  whom  his  mantle 
should  descend ;  but  in  humble  imitation  of  that  Omnipotent 
Architect,  who  returned  from  a  created  universe  to  contemplate 
from  his  throne  the  stupendous  fabric  he  had  erected  ! 

The  august  form  whose  undaunted  majesty  could  arrest  the 
lightning,  ere  it  fell  on  the  bosom  of  his  country,  now  sleeps  in 
silent  ruin,  untenanted  of  its  celestial  essence.  But  the  incorrupt- 
ible example  of  his  virtues  shall  survive,  unimpaired  by  the  corro- 
sion of  time,  and  acquire  new  vigor  and  influence  from  the  crimes 
of  ambition  and  the  decay  of  empires.  The  invaluable  valediction 
bequeathed  to  the  people  who  inherited  his  affections  is  the  effort 
of  a  mind  whose  powers,  like  those  of  prophecy,  could  overleap  the 
tardy  progress  of  human  reason,  and  unfold  truth  without  the  labor 
of  investigation.  Impressed  in  indelible  characters,  this  legacy  of 
his  intelligence  will  descend,  unsullied  as  its  purity,  to  the  wonder 
and  instruction  of  succeeding  generations ;  and,  should  the  mild 
philosophy  of  its  maxims  be  ingrafted  into  the  policy  of  nations,  at 
no  distant  period  will  the  departed  hero,  who  now  lives  only  in  the 
spotless  splendor  of  his  own  great  actions,  exist  in  the  happiness 
and  dignity  of  mankind. 

The  sighs  of  contemporary  gratitude  have  attended  the  sublime 
spirit  to  its  paternal  abode,  and  the  prayers  of  meliorated  posterity 
will  ascend  in  glowing  remembrance  of  their  illustrious  benefactor ! 
The  laurels  that  now  droop  as  they  shadow  his  tomb  with  monu- 
mental glory  will  be  watered  by  the  tears  of  ages;  and,  embalmed 
in  the  heart  of  an  admiring  world,  the  temple  erected  to  his  mem- 
ory will  be  more  glorious  than  the  pyramids,  and  as  eternal  as  his 
own  imperishable  virtues! 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


29 


ANCIENT  AXD  MODERN  PRODUCTIONS.  —  C.  Sumner. 

The  classics  possess  a  peculiar  charm,  from  the  circumstance 
that  they  have  been  the  models,  I  might  almost  say  the  masters, 
of  composition  and  thought,  in  all  ages.  In  the  contemplation  of 
these  august  teachers  of  mankind,  we  are  filled  with  conflicting 
emotions.  They  are  the  early  voice  of  the  world,  better  remem- 
bered and  more  cherished  still  than  all  the  intermediate  words 
that  have  been  uttered,  as  the  lessons  of  childhood  still  haunt  us 
when  the  impressions  of  later  years  have  been  effaced  from  the 
mind.  But  they  show  with  most  unwelcome  frequency  the  tokens 
of  the  world's  childhood,  before  passion  had  yielded  to  the  sway  of 
reason  and  the  affections.  They  want  the  highest  charm  of  purity, 
of  righteousness,  of  elevated  sentiments,  of  love  to  God  and  man. 
It  is  not  in  the  frigid  philosophy  of  the  porch  and  the  academy 
that  we  are  to  seek  these ;  not  in  the  marvellous  teachings  of  Soc- 
rates, as  they  come  mended  by  the  mellifluous  words  of  Plato ; 
not  in  the  resounding  line  of  Homer,  on  whose  inspiring  tale  of 
blood  Alexander  pillowed  his  head  ;  not  in  the  animated  strain  of 
Pindar,  where  virtue  is  pictured  in  the  successful  strife  of  an 
athlete  at  the  Isthmian  games  ;  not  in  the  torrent  of  Demosthenes, 
dark  with  self-love  and  the  spirit  of  vengeance ;  not  in  the  fitful 
philosophy  and  intemperate  eloquence  of  Tully ;  not  in  the  genial 
libertinism  of  Horace,  or  the  stately  atheism  of  Lucretius.  No ! 
these  must  not  be  our  masters  ;  in  none  of  these  are  we  to  seek, 
the  way  of  life.  For  eighteen  hundred  years  the  spirit  of  these 
writers  has  been  engaged  in  weaponless  contest  with  the  Sermon 
on  the  Mount,  and  those  two  sublime  commandments  on  which 
hang  all  the  law  and  the  prophets.  The  strife  is  still  pending. 
Heathenism,  which  has  possessed  itself  of  such  siren  forms,  is  not 
yet  exorcised.  It  still  tempts  the  young,  controls  the  affairs  of 
active  life,  and  haunts  the  meditations  of  age. 

Our  own  productions,  though  they  may  yield  to  those  of  the 
ancients  in  the  arrangement  of  ideas,  in  method,  in  beauty  of  form, 
and  in  freshuess  of  illustration,  are  immeasurably  superior  in  the 
truth,  delicacy  and  elevation  of  their  sentiments,  —  above  all,  in 
2* 


CO 


SPECIMENS  OF 


the  benign  recognition  of  that  great  Christian  revelation,  the  broth- 
erhood of  man.  How  vain  are  eloquence  and  poetry,  compared 
with  this  heaven-descended  truth !  Put  in  one  scale  that  simple 
utterance,  and  in  the  other  the  lore  of  antiquity,  with  its  accumu- 
lating glosses  and  commentaries,  and  the  last  will  be  light  and 
trivial  in  the  balance.  Greek  poetry  has  been  likened  to  the  song 
of  the  nightingale  as  she  sits  in  the  rich,  symmetrical  crown  of  the 
palm-tree,  trilling  her  thick-warbled  notes  ;  but  even  this  is  less 
sweet  and  tender  than  the  music  of  the  human  heart. 


DEATH  OF  JOHX  Q.  ADAMS.  —  I.  E.  Holmes. 

The  mingled  tones  of  sorrow,  like  the  voice  of  many  waters, 
have  come  unto  us  from  a  sister  state  —  Massachusetts,  weeping 
for  her  honored  son.  The  state  I  have  the  honor  in  part  to  repre- 
sent once  endured,  with  her,  a  common  suffering,  battled  for  a 
common  cause,  and  rejoiced  in  a  common  triumph.  Surely,  then, 
it  is  meet  that  in  this  the  day  of  her  affliction  we  should  mingle 
our  griefs. 

When  a  great  man  falls,  the  nation  mourns ;  when  a  patriarch 
is  removed,  the  people  weep.  Ours,  my  associates,  is  no  common 
bereavement.  The  chain  which  linked  our  hearts  with  the  gifted 
spirits  of  former  times  has  been  suddenly  snapped.  The  lips  from 
which  flowed  those  living  and  glorious  truths  that  our  fathers 
uttered  are  closed  in  death.  Yes,  my  friends,  Death  has  been 
among  us!  He  has  not  entered  the  humble  cottage  of  some 
unknown,  ignoble  peasant ;  he  has  knocked  audibly  at  the  palace 
of  a  nation !  His  footstep  has  been  heard  in  the  halls  of  state ! 
He  has  cloven  down  his  victim  in  the  midst  of  the  councils  of  a 
people.  He  has  borne  in  triumph  from  among  you  the  gravest, 
wisest,  most  reverend  head.  Ah !  he  has  taken  him  as  a  trophy 
who  was  once  chief  over  many  statesmen,  adorned  with  virtue,  and 
learning,  and  truth ;  he  has  borne  at  his  chariot-wheels  a  renowned 
one  of  the  earth. 

How  often  we  have  crowded  into  that  aisle,  and  clustered  around 
that  now  vacant  desk,  to  listen  to  the  counsels  of  wisdom  as  they 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


31 


fell  from  the  lips  of  the  venerable  sage,  we  can  all  remember,  for 
it  was  but  of  yesterday.  But  what  a  change  !  How  wondrous  ! 
how  sudden  !  'T  is  like  a  vision  of  the  night.  That  form  which 
we  beheld  but  a  few  days  since  is  now  cold  in  death ! 

But  the  last  Sabbath,  and  in  this  hall  he  worshipped  with  others. 
Now  his  spirit  mingles  with  the  noble  army  of  martyrs  and  the 
just  made  perfect,  in  the  eternal  adoration  of  the  living  God. 
With  him,  "  this  is  the  end  of  earth."  He  sleeps  the  sleep  that 
knows  no  waking.  He  is  gone  —  and  forever !  The  sun  that 
ushers  in  the  morn  of  that  next  holy  day,  while  it  gilds  the  lofty 
dome  of  the  capitol,  shall  rest  with  soft  and  mellow  light  upon  the 
consecrated  spot  beneath  whose  turf  forever  lies  the  Patriot 
Father  and  the  Patriot  Sage. 


THE  SEVENTY-FIFTH  ANNIVERSARY  OF  THE  FIRST  BATTLE 
OF  THE  REVOLUTION.  —  R.  Ranloul,  Jr. 

The  prospect  before  Hancock  and  Adams,  on  the  ever-glorious 
nineteenth  of  April,  was,  to  be  soon  proclaimed  traitors ;  and,  if  the 
giant  despotism  they  had  provoked  crushed  the  incipient  rebellion, 
as  the  world  looking  on  expected,  that  then  their  ghastly  heads 
would  frown  from  Temple  Bar,  and  their  blasted  names  be 
bequeathed  to  eternal  infamy,  both  in  the  Old  World  and  the  New, 
—  triumphant  tyranny  having  silenced  the  voice  of  truth,  justice, 
and  patriotism.  The  "  condign  punishment  "  denounced  against 
these  champions  of  the  constitutional  rights  of  Englishmen  involved 
atrocities  too  horrible  to  be  alluded  to  here ;  it  was  an  exhibition 
from  which  a  heathen  spectator  might  naturally  infer  that  not  the 
dove,  but  the  vulture,  was  the  emblem  of  Christianity.  It  had 
been  first  inflicted  on  an  unfortunate  patriot  guilty  of  the  precise 
crime  of  Hancock  and  Adams,  —  David,  Prince  of  Wales,  —  who, 
in  the  eleventh  year  of  Edward  I.,  expiated  by  a  cruel  death  his 
fidelity  to  the  cause  of  his  country's  independence.  At  a  grand 
consultation  of  the  peers  of  the  realm,  it  was  agreed  that  London 
should  be  graced  with  his  head,  while  York  and  Winchester  dis- 
puted for  the  honor  of  his  right  shoulder.    In  a  few  years  other 


32 


SPECIMENS  OF 


Welsh  chiefs  suffered  the  fate  of  their  prince.  This  unseemly  pre- 
cedent, adopted  in  the  flush  and  insolence  of  victory,  then  assumed 
the  venerable  form  of  law,  and  fell  next  upon  the  undaunted  Wil- 
liam Wallace,  who  nobly  died  in  defence  of  the  liberties  and  inde- 
pendence of  his  country,  exhibiting  to  the  delighted  city  of  London 
a  terrible  example  <5f  Edward's  vengeance.  Such  was  the  begin- 
ning of  that  law  of  treason,  which,  originating  in  the  year  1283, 
continued  in  force  for  more  than  five  centuries,  as  if  to  warn  man- 
kind how  easily  the  most  execrable  example  may  be  introduced, 
and  with  what  difficulty  a  country  is  purified  from  its  debasing 
influence.  Why  should  I  single  out  illustrious  victims  of  these 
rites  of  Moloch  ?  The  ever-hallowed  names  in  the  perennial  pages 
of  British  glory,  you  may  read  them  in  the  attainted  catalogue  of 
arrant  traitors.  Long  after  the  ashes  of  Welsh  independence  were 
quenched  in  the  blood  of  a  native  prince,  —  ages  after  the  spirit  of 
Scottish  liberty  was  roused,  not  crushed,  by  the  ignominious  butch- 
ery of  Wallace,  —  More  and  Fisher,  learning  and  piety,  Hussell 
and  Sidney,  integrity  and  honor,  were  sacrificed  upon  the  scaffold 
of  treason,  beneath  the  axe  of  arbitrary  power.  These  lessons  of 
history  might  have  taught  our  Hancock  and  Adams  that  the  holy 
cause  to  which  they  were  devoted,  purity  of  motive,  and  a  charac- 
ter untouched  by  any  shaft  of  calumny,  were  not  pleas  in  bar  to 
a  British  indictment  for  treason. 

Why,  then,  was  the  prospect  of  coming  perils  glorious  to  the 
eye  of  far-seeing  patriotism  ?  For  the  high  prize  that  could  be 
won  by  none  but  souls  tempered  to  pass  through  the  intervening 
agony,  who,  for  the  joy  that  was  set  before  them,  could  endure  the 
cross  and  despise  the  shame,  — Liberty,  the  life  of  life,  that  glad- 
dens the  barren  hill-tops  of  Scotland,  and  Switzerland,  and  loved 
New  England,  —  that  makes  the  sun  shine  brightly  in  our  cold 
northern  sky,  that  makes  the  valleys  verdant  in  blithesome  spring, 
and  sober  autumn  laugh  in  her  golden  exuberance,  —  that  nerves 
the  arm  of  labor  and  blesses  the  couch  of  repose,  that  clothes  with 
strength  our  sons  and  our  daughters  with  beauty,  —  Liberty,  in 
whose  devotion  they  were  nursed,  —  which  their  fathers  had 
bequeathed  to  them,  a  legacy  to  be  handed  down  unimpaired, 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


33 


through  ourselves,  to  their  and  our  latest  posterity ;  to  which  they 
clung  through  life,  and  which  inspired  the  patriotism  that  could 
freely  testify  to  die  for  one's  country  is  a  joy  and  a  glory. 

Young  freedom  had  ever  been  consecrated  by  the  baptism  of 
bbod.  Sparta  and  Athens,  Holland  and  the  mountain-girt  Swiss, 
proud  Albion  and  regenerated  France,  bought  at  a  cheap  purchase, 
with  the  lavish  expense  of  their  best  lives,  the  rights  which  they 
enjoyed.  Adams  and  his  compatriots,  on  the  day  we  have  met  to 
celebrate,  knew  that  liberty  must  be,  as  it  ever  had  been,  a  life- 
bought  boon  ;  that  only  by  a  mortal  struggle  could  it  be  wrested 
from  the  grasp  of  power ;  and  that  nothing  but  perpetual  vigilance, 
resolved  to  do  and  dare  and  suffer  all  things,  rather  than  surren- 
der it,  could  guarantee  the  long  possession  of  the  blessing  after- 
wards.   They  had  counted  the  cost,  and  chose  the  purchase. 

Glorious,  thrice  glorious,  was  the  morning,  then,  when  the  first 
shot  fired  at  Lexington  gave  the  signal  of  separation  of  a  free  and 
independent  empire  from  its  parent  state  !  The  nineteenth  of 
April,  and  the  seventeenth  of  June,  both  on  the  classic  ground  of 
the  world's  freedom,  this  county  of  Middlesex,  cut  out  the  work 
for  the  fourth  of  July, — world-emancipating  work,  which  the 
achievements  of  the  heroes  of  the  uprising  of  America,  and  the 
Titanic  labors  of  the  transatlantic  sons  of  revolution,  yet  agitate 
and  roll  on  towards  its  grand  completion  !  Middlesex  possesses 
this  imperishable  glory,  before  which  the  lustre  of  the  brightest 
victories,  won  in  battles  between  contending  tyrants,  turns  pale. 
Her  children  claim  a  common  property  in  the  trophies  of  these  two 
memorable  days ;  they  walk  together  in  the  light  of  these  two 
glowing  beacon-fires,  kindled  on  that  stormy  coast  where  Liberty 
has  taken  up  her  eternal  abode,  to  illuminate,  with  the  cheering 
radiance  of  hope,  her  benighted  pilgrims,  who  can  look  nowhere 
else  for  hope  but  to  this  western  world. 

It  is  to  the  county  of  Middlesex  that  the  tribes  of  our  American 
Israel  come  up  to  keep  holy  time.  The  Mecca  and  Medina  of  the 
advent  of  freedom  are  within  her  borders.  Lexington,  whose 
echoes  answered  to  the  signal-gun  that  broke  the  centennial  slumbers 
of  thz  genius  of  revolution,  to  sleep  no  more  till  he  has  trampled 


34 


SPECIMENS  OF 


on  the  fetters  of  the  last  slave,  and  wrapped  in  consuming  flames 
the  last  throne ;  to  overturn,  and  overturn,  and  overturn,  until  he 
shall  make  an  end :  —  Concord,  that  saw  the  insulting  foe  driven 
back  in  dire  confusion  before  the  children  of  liberty,  as  the  cloud 
squadrons  of  some  threatening  thunder-storm  melt  and  disperse 
when  the  full-orbed  sun  bursts  through  and  overpowers  them ;  — 
Acton,  whose  Spartan  band  of  minute-men  withstood  the  onset 
and  returned  the  fire  of  the  minions  of  the  tyrant ;  whose  gallant 
Davis  poured  out  his  soul  freely  in  his  country's  cause,  at  the 
moment  when  the  tide  of  foreign  aggression  ebbed,  at  the  moment 
when  the  beginning  of  the  onward  movement  of  his  country's  lib- 
erty, independence,  greatness  and  glory,  by  his  judgment,  prompt- 
ness and  valor,  was  secured ;  —  Charlestown,  the  smoke  of  whose 
sacrifice  mingled  with  the  roar  of  the  murderous  artillery,  while  a 
holocaust  of  victims  and  the  apotheosis  of  Warren  consecrated  her 
mount  as  the  thrice  holy  spot  of  all  New  England's  hallowed  soil ; 
—  Cambridge,  the  head-quarters  of  the  hero,  after  whom  the  age 
of  transition  from  monarchies  to  republics  will  be  called  the  age 
of  Washington ; — in  these,  her  towns,  are  the  several  peculiar 
shrines  of  the  worship  of  constitutional  liberty  that  have  made  the 
American  continent  not  barren  of  historical  mouumental  scenes. 
Where  else,  in  the  circuit  of  the  revolving  globe,  does  the  sun  look 
on  such  a  clustered  group  of  glories  ? 

Over  how  broad  a  portion  of  the  world  have  we'extended  the 
advantages  we  ourselves  enjoy !  Our  domain  unites  the  noblest 
valley  on  the  surface  of  the  globe,  competent  to  grow  food  for 
human  beings  many  more  than  now  dwell  on  the  face  of  the  earth, 
with  an  eastern  wing  fitted  for  the  site  of  the  principal  manufac- 
turing and  commercial  power  of  existing  Christendom,  and  a  western 
flank  well  situated  to  held  the  same  position  on  the  Pacific,  when 
Asia  shall  renew  her  youth,  and  Australia  shall  have  risen  to  the 
level  of  Europe.  Bewildering,  almost,  is  the  suddenness  of  our 
expansion  to  fill  these  limits,  and  astounding  are  the  phenomena  that, 
accompany  this  development.  This  day  there  stands  before  the 
councils  of  the  nation,  deputed  to  participate  in  their  deliberations, 
a  young  man  born  within  sight  of  old  Concord  Bridge,  and  educated 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


3o 


under  the  institutions  which  Concord  fight  secured,  who,  when  he 
revisits  the  old  homestead,  claims  to  represent  a  territory  larger 
than  France  and  the  United  British  kingdom,  —  capable  of  con- 
taining, if  settled  to  the  present  density  of  Great  Britain,  more 
than  a  hundred  millions  of  souls,  —  a  territory  lately  the  joint 
inheritance  of  the  Indian  and  the  grisly  bear,  now  outstripping,  in 
its  instant  greatness,  all  recorded  colonies,  —  the  Ophir  of  our  age, 
richer  than  Solomon's,  richer  than  the  wildest  vision  that  ever 
dazzled  Arabian  fancy. 

Occupying  such  a  continent,  receiving  it  consecrated  by  the  toils 
and  sufferings  and  outpouring  of  ancestral  blood,  which  on  the  day 
we  now  commemorate  began,  how  delightful  is  the  duty  which 
devolves  on  us,  to  guard  the  beacon-fire  of  liberty,  whose  flames 
our  fathers  kindled  !  Suffer  it  not,  my  friends !  suffer  it  not,  pos- 
terity that  shall  come  after  us  !  to  be  clouded  by  domestic  dissen- 
sion, or  obscured  by  the  dank,  mephitic  vapors  *of  faction  !  Until 
now,  its  pure  irradiance  dispels  doubt  and  fear,  and  revivifies  the 
fainting  hopes  of  downcast  patriotism.  Forever  may  it  shine 
brightly  as  now ;  for  as  yet  its  pristine  lustre  fades  not,  but  still 
flasnes  out  the  ancient,  clear,  and  steady  illumination,  joy-giving 
as  the  blaze  that,  leaping  from  promontory  to  promontory,  told  the 
triumph  of  Agamemnon  over  fated  Troy  !  It  towers  and  glows, 
refulgent  and  beautiful,  far-seen  by  the  tempest-tost  on  the  sea  of 
revolution,  darting  into  the  dungeons  of  gaunt  despair  beams 
whose  benignant  glory  no  lapse  of  time  shall  dim  ;  the  wanderers 
in  the  chill  darkness  of  slavery  it  guides,  and  cheers,  and  warms ; 
it  fills  the  universe  with  its  splendor. 


THE  UNIOX.  —  H.  Clay. 

I  do  not  desire  to  see  the  lustre  of  one  single  star  dimmed  of 
that  glorious  confederacy  which  constitutes  our  political  sun ;  still 
less  do  I  wish  to  see  it  blotted  out,  and  its  light  obliterated  forever. 
Has  not  the  State  of  South  Carolina  been  one  of  the  members  of 
this  Union  in  "  days  that  tried  men's  souls  "  ?  Have  not  her  ances- 


36 


SPECIMENS  OF 


tors  fought  alongside  our  ancestors  ?  Have  we  not,  conjointly,  won 
together  many  a  glorious  battle  ?  If  we  had  to  £0  into  a  civil  war 
with  such  a  state,  how  would  it  terminate  ?  Whenever  it  should 
have  terminated,  what  would  be  her  condition  ?  If  she  should  «ver 
return  to  the  Union,  what  would  be  the  condition  of  her  feelings 
and  affections  ?  what  the  state  of  the  heart  of  her  people  ?  She 
has  been  with  us  before,  when  our  ancestors  mingled  in  the  throng 
of  battle  ;  and,  as  I  hope  our  posterity  will  mingle  with  hers,  for 
ages  and  centuries  to  come,  in  the  united  defence  of  liberty,  and 
for  the  honor  and  glory  of  the  Union,  I  do  not  wish  to  see  her 
degraded  or  defaced  as  a  member  of  this  confederacy. 

In  conclusion,  allow  me  to  entreat  and  implore  each  individual 
member  of  this  body  to  bring  into  the  consideration  of  this  measure, 
which  I  have  had  the  honor  of  proposing,  the  same  love  of  country 
which,  if  I  know  myself,  has  actuated  me,  and  the  same  desire  of 
restoring  harmony  to  the  Union  which  has  prompted  this  effort. 
If  we  can  forget  for  a  moment,  —  but  that  would  be  asking  too 
much  of  human  nature,  —  if  we  could  suppress,  for  one  moment, 
party  feelings  and  party  causes,  —  and,  as  I  stand  here  before  my 
God,  I  declare  I  have  looked  beyond  these  considerations,  and 
regarded  only  the  vast  interests  of  this  united  people,  —  I  should 
hope  that,  under  such  feelings,  and  with  such  dispositions,  we  may 
advantageously  proceed  to  the  consideration  of  this  bill,  and  heal, 
before  they  are  yet  bleeding,  the  wounds  of  our  distracted  country. 


FREE  DISCUSSION.  —  T.  Burgess. 

Sir,  admit  —  for  we  must  admit  —  that  free  discussion  has  ever 
been  odious  to  the  tyrant,  and  to  all  the  minions  of  licentious  power, 
—  but  can  we  ever  forget  how  eloquent,  how  enchanting,  the  voice 
of  that  same  freedom  of  speech  has  in  all  ages  been,  wherever  its 
tones  have  fallen  on  the  ear  of  freemen  ? 

Free  discussion,  and  liberty  itself,  eloquence  and  freedom  of 
speech,  are  contemporaneous  fires,  and  brighten  and  blaze,  or  lan- 
guish and  go  out,  together.    Athenian  liberty  was,  for  years,  pro- 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


37 


tracted  by  that  free  discussion  which  was  sustained  and  continued 
in  Athens.  Freedom  was  prolonged  by  eloquence.  Liberty  paused 
and  lingered,  that  she  might  listen  to  the  divine  intonations  of  her 
voice.  Free  discussion,  the  eloquence  of  one  man,  rolled  back  the 
tide  of  Macedonian  power,  and  long  preserved  his  country  from  the 
overwhelming  deluge. 

When  the  light  of  free  discussion  Jaad,  throughout  all  the  Grecian 
cities,  been  extinguished  in  the  blood  of  those  statesmen  by  whose 
eloquence  it  had  been  sustained,  young  Tully,  breathing  the  spirit 
of  Roman  liberty  on  the  expiring  embers,  relumed  and  transmitted, 
from  the  banks  of  the  Ilissus  to  those  of  the  Tiber,  this  glorious 
light  of  freedom.  This  mighty  master  of  the  forum,  by  his  free 
discussions,  both  from  the  rostrum  and  in  the  senate-house,  gave 
new  vigor,  and  a  longer  duration  of  existence,  to  the  liberty  of  his 
country.  Who,  more  than  Marcus  Tullius  Cicero,  was  loved  and 
cherished  by  the  friends  of  that  country  ?  Who  more  feared  and 
hated  by  traitors  and  tyrants  ? 

Freedom  of  speech,  Roman  eloquence,  and  Roman  liberty, 
expired  together,  when,  under  the  proscription  of  the  second  tri- 
umvirate, the  hired  bravo  of  Mark  Antony  placed  in  the  lap  of  one 
of  his  profligate  minions  the  head  and  the  hands  of  Tully,  the  states- 
man, the  orator,  the  illustrious  father  of  his  country.  After  amus- 
ing herself  some  hours  by  plunging  her  bodkin  through  that  tongue 
which  had  so  long  delighted  the  senate  and  the  rostrum,  and  made 
Antony  himself  tremble  in  the  midst  of  his  legions,  she  ordered 
that  head  and  those  hands,  then  the  trophies  of  a  savage  despotism, 
to  be  sat  up  in  the  forum. 

"  Her  last  good  man  dejected  Rome  adored ; 
Wept  for  her  patriot  slain,  and  cursed  the  tyrant's  sword." 

English  statesmen  and  orators,  in  the  free  discussions  of  the  Eng- 
lish Parliament,  have  been  formed  on  those  illustrious  models  of 
Greek  and  Roman  policy  and  eloquence.  Multiplied  by  the  teem- 
ing labors  of  the  press,  the  works  of  the  master  and  the  disciple 
have  come  to  our  hands;  and  the  eloquence  of  Chatham,  of  Burke, 
of  Fox,  and  of  the  younger  Pitt,  reaches  us,  not  in  the  feeble  and 
4 


38 


SPECIMENS  OF 


evanescent  -voice  of  tradition,  but  preserved  and  placed  before  the 
eye  on  the  more  imperishable  page.  Neither  these  great  originals 
nor  their  improved  transcripts  have  been  lost  to  our  country.  The 
American  political  school  of  free  discussion  has  enriched  the 
nation  with  some  distinguished  scholars ;  and  Dexter,  and  Morris, 
and  Pinkney,  will  not  soon  be  forgotten  by  our  country,  or  by  the 
literary  world. 

Some  men  who  now  live  may  hereafter  be  found  deserving  of 
that  life,  in  the  memory  of  posterity,  which  very  great  men  have 
thought  no  unworthy  object  of  a  glorious  ambition.  "Who  can 
censure  this  anxious  wish  to  live  in  human  memory  ?  "When  we 
feel  ourselves  borne  along  the  current  of  time,  —  when  we  see  our- 
selves hourly  approach  that  cloud,  impenetrable  to  the  human  eye, 
which  terminates  the  last  visible  portion  of  this  moving  estuary,  — 
who  of  us,  although  he  may  hope,  when  he  reaches  it,  to  shoot 
through  that  dark  barren  into  a  more  bright  and  peacefid  region, 
yet  who,  I  say,  can  feel  himself  receding  swiftly  from  the  eye  of 
all  human  sympathy,  leaving  the  vision  of  all  human  monuments, 
and  not  wish,  as  he  passes  by,  to  place  on  those  monuments  some 
little  memorial  of  himself,  —  some  volume  of  a  book,  —  or,  perhaps, 
but  a  single  page,  that  it  may  be  remembered, 

"When  we  are  not,  that  we  have  been  "? 

Sir,  these  models  of  ancient  and  modern  policy  and  eloquence, 
formed  in  the  great  schools  of  free  discussion,  both  in  earlier  and 
later  time,  are  in  the  hands  of  thousands  of  those  youths  who  are 
now,  in  all  the  parts  of  our  country,  forming  themselves  for  the 
public  service.  This  hall  is  the  bright  goal  of  their  generous, v 
patriotic,  and  glorious  ambition.  Sir,  they  look  hither  with  a 
feeling  not  unlike  that  devotion  felt  by  the  pilgrim  as  he  looks 
towards  some  venerated  shrine.  Do  not  —  I  implore  you,  sir,  do 
not — by  your  decision  this  day  abolish  the  rites  of  liberty,  conse- 
crated in  this  place  !  Extinguish  not  these  fires  on  her  altar, 
which  should  here  be  eternal !  Suffer-not,  suffer  not  the  rude  hand 
of  this  more  than  Vandal  violence  to  demolish,  "  from  turret  to 
foundation-stone,"  this  last  sanctuary  of  freedom  ! 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


39 


THE  RIGHT  TO  DISCUSS  PRESIDENTIAL  ACTS.  —  W.  C.  Preston. 

Tiie  gentleman  has  referred  to  the  contest  to  be  fought  between 
liberty  and  power ;  and  I  say,  that  if  the  contest  did  not  originate 
here,  it  is  made  when  we  are  not  permitted  to  speak  of  the  admin- 
istration in  terms  that  we  believe  to  be  true,  without  being 
denounced  for  it.  The  President  of  the  United  States  certainly 
demands  a  degree  of  forbearance  from  his  political  opponents ;  but 
am  I  to  be  told  that  one  can  only  allude  to  him  in  the  humble 
language  of  a  degraded  Romau  senate,  speaking  of  the  emperor 
with  his  Prtetorian  guards  surrounding  the  capitol  ?  Am  I  to  be 
told,  when  he  came  into  power  on  principles  of  reform,  after  "  keep- 
ing the  word  of  promise  to  our  ear,  and  breaking  it  to  our  hope," 
—  am  I  to  be  told  that  I  must  close  my  lips,  or  be  denounced  for 
want  of  decorum  ?  Am  I  to  be  told,  when  he  promised  to  prevent 
official  influence  from  interfering  with  the  freedom  of  elections, 
that  I  must  not  speak  of  the  broken  promise,  under  pain  of  the 
displeasure  of  his  friends  ?  Am  I  to  be  told,  when  he  came  into 
power  as  a  judicious  tariff  man,  after  advocating  his  principles  and 
aiding  in  his  election.  —  believing  at  the  time  in  his  integrity, 
though  I  did  not  believe  him  possessed  of  intellectual  qualifica- 
tions, —  am  I  to  be  told,  after  pledges  that  have  been  violated, 
promises  that  have  been  broken,  and  principles  that  have  been  set 
at  naught,  that  I  must  not  speak  of  these  things  as  they  are,  for 
fear  of  being  denounced  for  want  of  courtesy  to  the  constituted 
authorities  ?  Why,  to  what  pass  are  we  come !  Are  we  to  be 
gagged  —  reduced  to  silence  ?  If  nothing  else  is  left  to  us,  the  lib- 
erty of  speech  is  left ;  and  it  is  our  duty  to  cry  aloud  and  spare  not, 
when  the  undenied,  admitted,  and  declared  fact  before  us  is,  that 
these  pledges  have  been  made,  and  have  been  violated.  This 
administration  is  about  to  end;  and  if  gentlemen  can  succeed  in  pre- 
venting us  from  complaining  of  being  deceived,  if  they  can  reduce 
us  to  abject  slavery,  they  will  also  have  to  expunge  the  history  of 
the  country,  the  president's  written  and  recorded  communications 
to  Congress,  and  the  most  ardent  professions  of  his  friends,  when 
fighting  his  battles,  before  they  can  conceal  the  recorded  fact,  that 


40 


SPECIMENS  OF 


he  has  made  pledges  which  he  has  violated,  and  promises  which  he 
has  repeatedly  broken.  If  they  succeed  in  reducing  us  to  slavery, 
and  closing  our  lips  against  speaking  of  the  abuses  of  this  adminis- 
tration, thank  God !  the  voice  of  history,  trumpet-tongued,  will 
proclaim  these  pledges,  and  the  manner  in  which  they  have  been 
violated,  to  future  generations  ! 

Neither  here  nor  elsewhere  will  I  use  language,  with  regard  to 
any  gentleman,  that  may  be  considered  indecorous  ;  and  the  ques- 
tion not  easily  solved  is,  how  far  shall  we  restrain  ourselves  in 
expressing  a  just  and  necessary  indignation  ;  and  whether  the 
expression  of  such  indignation  may  be  considered  a  departure  from 
courtesy.  That  indignation,  that  reprobation,  I  shall  express  on 
all  occasions.  But  those  who  have  taken  upon  themselves  the 
guardianship  of  the  Grand  Lama,  who  is  surrounded  by  a  light 
which  no  one  can  approach,  —  about  whom  no  one  is  permitted  to 
speak  without  censure,  —  have  extended  that  guardianship  to  the 
presiding  officer  of  this  house.  Gentlemen  are  not  permitted  to 
speak  of  the  qualifications  of  that  officer  for  the  highest  office  in 
the  government.  Shall  we,  sir,  because  he  is  here  as  presiding 
officer  of  this  body,  keep  silent  when  he  is  urged  upon  tlie  people, 
who  are  goaded  and  driven  to  his  support,  lest  we  be  guilty  of  an 
indecorum  against  those  who  are  the  constituted  authorities  of  the 
country  ?  Thank  God,  it  is  not  my  practice  to  "  crook  the  pliant 
hinges  of  the  knee,  that  thrift  may  follow  fawning  ! " 

This  aggression  of  power  upon  our  liberties,  sir,  and  this  tame 
submission  to  aggression,  forebode  evil  to  this  nation.  "  Coming 
events  cast  their  shadows  before  them,"  deepening  and  darkening ; 
and,  as  the  sun  sets,  the  shadows  lengthen.  It  may  be  the  going 
down  of  the  great  luminary  of  the  republic,  and  that  we  all  shall 
be  enveloped  in  one  universal  political  darkness ! 


BURNING  OF  THE  LEXINGTON.  —  E.  H.  Ckapin. 

Great  calamities,  though  they  may  startle  and  appal  at  first 
live  but  a  brief  time  in  the  memory  of  the  multitude.    There  is  a. 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


41 


vivid  flash,  a  momentary  shock,  when  the  noisy  world  shrinks  back 
and  is  silent ;  —  and  then  the  vast  and  busy  machinery  goes  on 
again,  the  sentiment  of  horror  is  absorbed  in  the  rash  of  jarring 
interests  and  active  life,  and  the  event  is  apparently  forgotten ; 
while  the  hearts  that  are  peculiarly  torn  and  smitten  are  left  to 
bleed  alone,  and  to  heal  up  slowly  in  the  obscurity  of  private  grief 
and  retirement.  But  in  this  instance  the  cold  thrill  .that  ran 
through  every  soul  upon  hearing  the  "  evil  tidings  "  has  not  yet 
ceased  to  vibrate  even  in  the  great  mass  of  community  at  large. 
The  exclamations  of  surprise  and  horror  which  follow  the  dreadful 
announcement  are  yet  pealing  upon  our  ears  from  remote  portions 
of  the  land.  The  waters  that  yawned  to  receive  the  wasted  treas- 
ures, the  charred  and  broken  timbers,  and  the  bodies  of  the  drowned, 
have  not  yet  become  quiet  and  sealed  above  their  awful  sepulchres. 
Still,  day  after  day,  disconsolate  Love  and  sorrowing  Friendship 
are  called  to  the  sea-shore  or  the  house  of  the  dead,  to  recognize 
some  lithe  and  perhaps  mangled  form,  that  has  been  given  up  and 
rescued  from  the  deep.  Still,  ever  and  anon,  some  portion  of 
sunken  treasure,  some  relic  that  was  lost  with  the  departed,  is 
plucked  all  dripping  from  the  bosom  of  the  element,  to  touch  the 
chord  of  painful  association,  and  tear  the  wounds  of  affection  afresh. 
Still,  the  anxious  wife,  or  child,  or  parent,  at  the  hearth  of  home, 
and  the  distant  traveller  upon  the  heaving  billows,  shudder  with 
apprehension  and  are  cold  at  the  heart,  as  their  thought  goes  back 
to  that  scene  of  death  and  terror  which  surrounded  the  doomed 
and  burning  Lexington. 

A  vessel  plying  upon  the  route  between  two  of  the  most  import- 
ant cities  of  our  country,  filled  with  a  multitude  of  human  beings, 
in  sight  of  a  populous  shore,  in  an  early  hour  of  the  evening,  is 
suddenly  enwrapped  in  flames,  —  surrounded  by  the  darkness  of 
the  night,  the  inclement  winter  air,  and  a  waste  of  cold  and  icy 
waters  ;  leaving  to  its  wretched  inmates,  in  almost  every  instance, 
nothing  but  the  dreadful  alternative  of  death  by  the  consuming 
flame  or  by  the  freezing  flood.  The  alarm-cry  bursts  from  lip  to  lip 
of  that  startled  throng,  smiting  awfully  and  solemnly  upon  each 
heart,  like  the  tone  of  its  own  deep  death-knell.  Imagination 
4* 


42 


SPECIMENS  OF 


cannot  picture,  or  conceive,  the  dread  reality.  In  what  various 
moods  of  thought,  in  what  different  occupations,  were  they  engaged  ! 
They  had  left,  but  a  little  while  ago,  the  thronged  and  busy  city, 
thro .  gh  whose  streets,  filled  with  light  and  life,  and  presenting  all 
the  diversities  of  a  mimic  world,  the}'-  had  so  lately  passed ;  and 
they  were  now,  calmly  as  if  under  the  roof  of  their  own  dwellings, 
borne  on  with  all  the  speed  of  mighty  engines  towards  other 
thoroughfares  of  life  and  action  and  joy,  where  they  might  mingle 
among  men.  Some  had  grasped  warm  hands  and  pressed  warm 
hearts  at  parting,  and  bidden  a  gay  or  sad,  but,  as  they  thought,  a 
brief  farewell.  Some  had  left  the  couch  of  the  sick  friend,  hurried 
forth  by  the  urgency  of  business,  with  the  promise  and  the  thought 
speedily  to  return.  Some  had  parted  with  the  traveller's  haste, 
who  had  already  passed  over  a  long  and  wearisome  route,  and  were 
looking  forward  with  eager  expectation  to  the  welcome  of  their  near 
and  waiting  homes.  Some  had  come  forth  with  the  gladness  and 
buoyancy  of  hope,  with  the  strong  purpose  of  gain,  with  the  joyful 
anticipation  of  meeting  dear  and  familiar  faces.  Some  had  decided 
to  come  upon  a  halting  resolution,  —  0 !  why  did  they  thus 
decide  ?  Some  were  far  from  their  homes,  and  were  numbering  the 
days  that  should  bear  them  back.  Some  —  but  we  will  not  pause  to 
enumerate  the  various  circumstances  under  which  the  members  of 
that  group  had  set  out,  and  that  preceded  their  solemn  end.  Suf- 
fice it  to  say,  that  life  and  hope,  and  memories  of  loved  ones,  and 
innumerable  thoughts  and  sympathies  and  feelings,  were  stirring 
in  the  hearts  of  the  mass  of  beings  that  were  so  soon  to  go  down, 
amid  the  chilliness  of  winter  and  the  flaming  shroud  of  the  confla- 
gration, to  the  cold  and  unknown  chambers  of  the  deep ! 

What  a  hurried  rush  for  safety  and  for  life  was  there  !  What 
piercing  shrieks,  bursting  from  ashy  and  quivering  lips,  rose  above 
the  hoarse  gurgling  of  the  waters,  the  roar  and  crackling  of  the 
flames,  and  rent  the  flushed  and  heated  brow  of  night !  What 
frantic  cries  of  the  husband  for  the  wife,  the  wife  for  the  husband, 
—  the  mother  clutching  wildly  for  her  child,  the  child  sobbing  for 
its  mother !  What  strivings  of  agony  with  the  hot  breath  of  the 
flame  and  the  suffocating  smoke ;  what  moanings  of  the  helpless, 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


43 


the  trampled,  and  the  crushed  !  What  invocations  for  aid,  shrieked 
into  the  ears  of  mortals  as  impotent !  What  fervent  prayers,  ris- 
ing through  the  tumult  and  storm  of  the  elements  to  the  eternal 
throne  !  But  still  the  fierce  flame  swept  relentlessly  on,  and  the 
waters  chafed  and  shouted  for  their  prey ! 

The  strong,  brave  man,  perchance,  was  there,  who  had  toiled  in 
sun  and  storm,  and  faced  the  billows  and  the  wind,  and  travelled 
by  land  and  by  sea.  And  with  a  desperate  struggle  did  he  meet 
his  death,  grappling  and  striving  with  the  overwhelming  and  terrific 
powers  around  him,  as  though  they  were  living  and  conquerable 
things.  As  he  saw  behind  him,  in  the  fiery  jaws  of  one  element, 
certain  destruction,  with  giant  energy  did  he  put  by  the  dense  and 
muffling  smoke,  and  plunged  with  nerved  limbs  and  dauntless 
heart  into  the  cold  arms  of  the  other.  And  long  did  he  battle 
with  the  waves,  and  shout  and  gurgle  and  shriek  and  madly  toss 
the  icy  waters  to  and  fro ;  and  then,  benumbed  and  dead,  he  went 
down,  down,  and  all  was  still,  — save  a  hoarse  moaning  of  the  deep, 
above  his  burial-place ! 

Beauty,  perhaps,  was  there,  in  the  bloom  of  youth  and  health. 
But  when  the  alarm-cry  came,  white  was  that  cheek  with  a  pale- 
ness that  was  the  seal  of  death,  and  horror  glared  wildly  in  those 
beaming  eyes,  and  around  her  frail  and  delicate  form  swept  the 
blast  of  the  wreathing  flame.  That  white  hand  was  lifted  for  a 
moment  above  the  ridgy  billows,  one  stifled  cry  was  heard  —  and 
she  was  gone !  And  now  the  gentle  sunlight  lingers  and  the  sor- 
rowful winds  lament  above  her  bed  ;  but  no  flowers  shall  bloom 
and  no  tear  be  shed  upon  that  spot  beneath  which,  with  calm  brow, 
she  sleeps,  in  some  rocky  and  garnished  chamber, 

"Deep  in  the  silent  waters, 
A  thousand  fathoms  low." 

The  esteemed  and  talented  one  was  there.  He  who  had  studied, 
with  the  love  of  the  scholar,  the  sober  reaso/i  of  philosophy,  and  the 
earnest  faith  of  religion,  —  whose  lips  had  poured  forth  the  wrords 
of  instruction  and  of  genius,  and  whose  voice  had  been  heard  in  the 
blessed  ministrations  of  the  gospel,  —  was  called  upon  thus  to  die,  — 


44 


SPECIMENS  OF 


to  die  suddenly  and  amid  a  scene  of  horror,  —  to  die  while  on  his 
way  to  fulfil  a  duty  of  his  sabred  station,  —  to  die  far  away  from 
the  graves  of  his  fathers  and  from  his  native  land,  and  even  frem 
the  tombs  of  those  dear  to  him  in  the  home  of  his  adoption,  —  and, 
0  !  to  die  away  from  the  arms  of  that  devoted  wife,  who  sorrowed 
for  his  absence,  and  waited  with  yearning  fondness  for  his  return 
But  he  died  leaving  fresh,  green  memories  in  the  hearts  of  those 
who  knew  him,  and  a  good  name  in  the  world  ;  and,  better  than  all, 
he  died  with  his  armor  on,  as  a  soldier  of  the  cross.  He  passed 
away  amid  the  strife  of  the  physical  elements  and  the  sufferings  of 
keenest  bodily  anguish ;  but  we  may  believe  that  soul  that  had 
imbibed  the  principles  of  Jesus  was  calm  and  triumphant  amid  it 
all,  and  supported  and  brightened  with  the  undying  hope  of  the 
Christian. 

Maternal  affection  was  there,  deep,  firm  and  true,  to  the  last. 
Doubtless  she  struggled  long  for  the  boon  of  life ;  not  only  for  her- 
self, —  0  !  not  only  for  herself!  —  but  for  that  dear  babe.  But  when 
death  came  to  relieve  the  little  suffering  child,  and  she  gazed  upon 
its  pale  brow  and  saw  that  it  was  dead,  —  when  she  felt  the  coldness 
gathering  closer  about  her  own  yearning  heart,  and  her  eyes  grow- 
ing dim,  — still,  still  was  she  true  to  the  unconquerable  impulse  of 
a  mother's  love  ;  and  she  tore  her  veil  from  off  her,  and  cast  it 
about  the  face  of  that  sleeping  one,  that  the  winds  and  the  waves 
and  the  ice  might  not  treat  it  roughly,  and  that,  when  they  should 
find  its  little  corse,  it  might  be  all  as  unmarred  and  natural  as  if  it 
had  been  borne  in  its  mother's  arms,  and  laid  in  the  calmness  and 
beauty  of  its  stony  slumber  at  their  feet !  And  then  life  fluttered 
and  went  out  in  that  true  heart,  and  she  sunk  to  her  unknown 
grave ! 

And  so,  in  various  modes,  and  under  circumstances  marked  by 
various  degrees  of  horror,  the  young,  the  old,  the  rich,  the  poor, 
the  talented,  the  weak,  the  strong,  —  tender  woman  and  haughty 
manhood,  the  budding  youth  and  the  helpless  child,  —  so  they 
were  swept  away,  upon  that  night,  and  devoured  by  the  elements ; 
with  will  struggle  and  terrible  agonies  of  death,  with  the  flames 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


45 


hissing  behind  them  and  the  waters  yawning  before,  they  passed 
from  existence,  a  fearful  nn.ss  of  human  life, 

"  Unknellcd,  uncoffined,  and  unknown  '  " 

0  !  what,  think  you,  were  the  thoughts  of  that  dark  and  terrific 
death-hour  ?  The  reflections  and  memories  of  a  life  breaking  at 
once  upon  the  throbbing  brain,  more  painful,  more  torturing,  than 
the  flame  or  flood  that  was  devouring  their  shrinking  bodies  !  The 
cold  and  freezing  truth  rushing  over  the  heart,  that  they  must  die 
—  and  die  thus !  The  remembrance  of  loved  ones,  of  eyes  that 
would  flow  with  weeping  for  thein,  of  homes  that  would  be  deso- 
late, of  those  that  would  be  left  destitute,  of  forms  and  faces  to  be 
seen  in  this  world  no  more !  And  then,  the  many  and  varied 
thoughts  that  surround  the  idea  of  death,  —  the  things  of  religion, 
the  concerns  of  the  soul,  —  all  these  breaking  in,  in  one  flood, 
thrilling  every  artery  of  the  body,  and  every  faculty  of  the  mind ! 
0  !  who  shall  attempt  to  describe  that  crisis  ?  They  were  human. 
They  felt  as  human  beings  must  ever  feel,  borne  at  one  sweep  from 
this  mortal  existence,  hurried  from  the  relations  of  this  life,  sud- 
denly, violently,  and  forever ! 

0  !  the  homes  and  the  hearts  that  were  left  desolate  that  night ! 
0 !  the  peculiar  nature  of  that  grief,  that  flowed  in  upon  the 
mourner's  spirit  as  coldly  as  the  waters  flowed  over  their  lost,  their 
ocean-buried  dead ! 

There  were  children  gathered  around  their  mother's  knees  in  a 
distant  home  that  night,  and,  perchance,  they  looked  up  into  her 
gentle  face,  and  caught  from  it  the  beaming  smile  of  joy  that 
accompanied  the  announcement  that  their  father  was  on  his  way 
to  greet  them  !  Alas  !  the  dark  sea  lay  between  him  and  them  ; 
and  little  did  they  think,  when  they  opened  their  eyes  to  hail  with 
gladness  another  day,  that,  they  thought,  brought  him  nearer  to 
them,  —  little  did  they  think  that  the  husband,  the  father,  rested 
cold  and  still  beneath  that  s^a,  and  that  the  hours  flew  on  to  bring 
them  the  tidings  that  he  was  lost ! 

Love  lit  its  watch-fire  upon  that  sad  night.  It  looked  out,  peer- 
ing through  the  darkness  almost  in  sight  of  the  burning  wreck,  for 


46 


SPECIMENS  OF 


the  well-known  form,  so  endeared  to  it  by  the  strongest  of  earthly 
bonds.  But  that  form  came  not.  It  had  passed  away  from  life 
forever.  The  bridal  altar  would  never  be  lighted  for  him.  The 
true  glance  of  affection  should  beam  upon  him  no  more.  His  voice 
of  love  would  never  greet  the  ear,  —  it  went  out  in  a  lone,  wild 
shriek  upon  the  night  air  !  The  heart  that  beat  for  him  in  anxious 
expectation  would  never  press  his  heart ;  —  the  dashing  waves  had 
gone  over  it,  and  it  was  cold  and  still ! 

A  splendid  mansion  waited  for  its  owner.  Its  hall,  perchance, 
was  lighted,  and  its  doors  left  ajar ;  and  there  were  those  who 
listened  to  catch  the  echoes  of  his  well-known  step.  But  that 
mansion  received  him,  living,  no  more.  That  midnight  lamp  might 
burn  on  until  the  dawn,  but  he  would  not  return.  Those  doors 
should  open  to  his  touch  never  again.  Those  anxious  watchers 
listened  in  vain  for  his  tread.  0  !  sad,  sad  were  the  tidings  that 
broke  upon  their  ears,  instead  of  the  sound  of  that  well-known 
step  !  Dark,  dark  was  that  hearth,  from  which  his  familiar  face 
was  absent  —  absent  to  greet  them  there  no  more  ! 


FORMATION  OF  CHARACTER.  —  W.  Wirt. 

The  man  who  is  so  conscious  of  the  rectitude  of  his  intentions 
as  to  be  willing  to  open  his  bosom  to  the  inspection  of  the  world  is 
in  possession  of  one  of  the  strongest  pillars  of  a  decided  character. 
The  course  of  such  a  man  will  be  firm  and  steady,  because  he  has 
nothing  to  fear  from  the  world,  and  is  sure  of  the  approbation  and 
support  of  Heaven.  While  he  who  is  conscious  of  secret  and  dark 
designs,  which,  if  known,  would  blast  him,  is  perpetually  shrinking 
and  dodging  from  public  observation,  and  is  afraid  of  all  around, 
find  much  more  of  all  above  him. 

Such  a  man  may,  indeed,  pursue  his  iniquitous  plans,  steadily,  — 
he  may  waste  himself  to  a  skeleton  in  the  guilty  pursuit,  —  but  it 
is  impossible  that  he  can  pursue  them  with  the  same  health-inspir- 
ing confidence,  and  exulting  alacrity,  with  him  who  feels,  at  every 
step,  that  he  is  in  pursuit  of  honest  ends,  by  honest  means. 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


47 


The  clear,  unclouded  brow,  the  open  countenance,  the  brilliant 
eye,  which  can  look  an  honest  man  steadfastly,  yet  courteously,  in 
the  face,  the  healthfully-beating  heart,  and  the  firm,  elastic  step, 
belong  to  him  whose  bosom  is  free  from  guile,  and  who  knows  that 
all  his  motives  and  purposes  are  pure  and  right.  Why  should 
such  a  man  falter  in  his  course  ?  He  may  be  slandered ;  he  may 
be  deserted  by  the  world ;  but  he  has  that  within  which  will  keep 
him  erect,  and  enable  him  to  move  onward  in  his  course  with  his 
eyes  fixed  on  Heaven,  which  he  knows  will  not  desert  him. 

Let  your  first  step,  then,  in  that  discipline  which  is  to  give  you 
decision  of  character,  be  the  heroic  determination  to  be  honest  men, 
and  to  preserve  this  character  through  every  vicissitude  of  fortune, 
and  in  every  relation  which  connects  you  with  society.  I  do  not 
use  this  phrase,  "  honest  men,"  in  the  narrow  sense,  merely,  of 
meeting  your  pecuniary  engagements,  and  paying  your  debts ;  for 
this  the  common  pride  of  gentlemen  will  constrain  you  to  do. 

I  use  it  in  its  larger  sense  of  discharging  all  your  duties,  both 
public  and  private,  both  open  and  secret,  with  the  most  scrupulous, 
Heaven-attesting  integrity;  in  that  sense,  further,  which  drives 
from  the  bosom  all  little,  dark,  crooked,  sordid,  debasing  consider- 
ations of  self,  and  substitutes  in  their  place  a  bolder,  loftier,  and 
nobler  spirit.  —  one  that  will  dispose  you  to  consider  yourselves  as 
born,  not  so  much  for  yourselves  as  for  your  country  and  your  fel- 
low-creatures, and  which  will  lead  you  to  act  on  every  occasion 
sincerely,  justly,  generously,  magnanimously. 

There  is  a  morality  on  a  larger  scale,  perfectly  consistent  with 
a  just  attention  to  your  own  affairs,  which  it  would  be  the  height 
of  folly  to  neglect,  —  a  generous  expansion,  a  proud  elevation  and 
conscious  greatness  of  character,  which  is  the  best  preparation  for 
a  decided  course,  in  every  situation  into  which  you  can  be  thrown ; 
and  it  is  to  this  high  and  noble  tone  of  character  that  I  would  have 
you  to  aspire. 

I  would  not  have  you  to  resemble  those  weak  and  meagre  stream- 
let^ which  lose  their  direction  at  every  petty  impediment  that 
presents  itself,  and  stop,  and  turn  back,  and  creep  around,  and 
search  out  every  little  channel  through  which  they  may  wind  their 


43 


SPECIMENS  OF 


feeble  and  sickly  course.  Nor  yet  would  I  have  you  to  resemble 
the  headlong  torrent,  that  carries  havoc  in  its  mad  career.  But  I 
would  have  you  like  the  ocean,  that  noblest  emblem  of  majestic 
decision,  which,  in  the  calmest  hour,  still  heaves  its  resistless  might 
of  waters  to  the  shore,  filling  the  heavens,  day  and  night,  with  the 
echoes  of  its  sublime  declaration  of  independence,  and  tossing  and 
sporting  on  its  bed,  with  an  imperial  consciousness  of  strength  that 
laughs  at  opposition.  It  is  this  depth,  and  weight,  and  power,  and 
purity  of  character,  that  I  would  have  you  to  resemble ;  and  I 
would  have  you,  like  the  waters  of  the  ocean,  to  become  the  purer 
by  your  own  action. 


THE  DECLARATION  OP  INDEPENDENCE.  —  J.  Q.  Adams. 

The  interest  which,  in  that  paper,  has  survived  the  occasion 
upon  which  it  was  issued,  —  the  interest  which  is  of  every  age  and 
every  clime,  —  the  interest  which  quickens  with  the  lapse  of  years, 
spreads  as  it  grows  old,  and  brightens  as  it  recedes,  —  is  in  the 
principles  which  it  proclaims.  It  was  the  first  solemn  declaration 
by  a  nation  of  the  only  legitimate  foundation  of  civil  government. 
It  was  the  corner-stone  of  a  new  fabric,  destined  to  cover  the  sur- 
face of  the  globe.  It  demolished,  at-  a  stroke,  the  lawfulness  of  all 
governments  founded  upon  conquest.  It  swept  away  all  the  rub- 
bish of  accumulated  centuries  of  servitude.  It  announced,  in  prac- 
tical form,  to  the  world,  the  transcendent  truth  of  the  inalienable 
sovereignty  of  the  people.  It  proved  that  the  social  compact 
was  no  figment  of  the  imagination,  but  a  real,  solid  and  sacred 
bond  of  the  social  union.  From  the  day  of  this  declaration,  the 
people  of  North  America  were  no  longer  the  fragment  of  a  distant 
empire,  imploring  justice  and  mercy  from  an  inexorable  master,  in 
another  hemisphere.  They  were  no  longer  children,  appealing  in 
vain  to  the  sympathies  of  a  heartless  mother ;  no  longer  subjects, 
leaning  upon  the  shattered  columns  of  royal  promises,  and  invoking 
the  fiiith  of  parchment  to  secure  their  rights.  They  were  a 
nation,  asserting  as  of  right,  and  maintaining  by  war,  its  own 
existence.    A  nation  was  born  in  a  day. 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


"  How  many  ages  hence 
Shall  this,  their  lofty  scene,  be  acted  o'er, 
In  states  unborn,  and  accents  yet  unknown  1 " 

It  will  be  acted  o'er,  fellow-citizens,  but  it  can  never  be  repeated. 
It  stands,  and  must  forever  stand,  alone ;  a  beacon  on  the  summit 
of  the  mountain,  to  which  all  the  inhabitants  of  the  earth  may  turn 
their  eyes,  for  a  genial  and  saving  light,  till  time  shall  be  lost  in 
eternity,  and  this  globe  itself  dissolve,  nor  leave  a  wreck  behind. 
It  stands  forever,  a  light  of  admonition  to  the  rulers  of  men,  a 
light  of  salvation  and  redemption  to  the  oppressed.  So  long  as 
this  planet  shall  be  inhabited  by  human  beings,  so  long  as  man  shall 
be  of  a  social  nature,  so  long  as  government  shall  be  necessary  to 
the  great  moral  purposes  of  society,  so  long  as  it  shall  be  abused  to 
the  purposes  of  oppression,  —  so  long  shall  this  declaration  hold 
out,  to  the  sovereign  and  to  the  subject,  the  extent  and  the  bound- 
aries of  their  respective  rights  and  duties,  founded  in  the  laws  of 
nature  and  of  nature's  God. 


KOSSUTH'S  WELCOME  TO  BUXKER  HILL.  —  R.  Frothingham,  Jr. 

"We  stand  on  America's  classic  ground.  The  waters  that  flow 
beneath  us,  and  every  hill-top  and  valley  that  spread  out  in  a 
beautiful  amphitheatre  around  us,  have  their  story  of  the  men  who 
perilled  and  suffered  for  the  cause  of  freedom.  Here  was  fought 
the  first  great  battle  of  the  war  of  the  Revolution ;  there,  near  the 
shades  of  our  venerable  Harvard,  Washington  stood  when  he  first 
drew  his  sword  in  that  great  struggle ;  on  yonder  summit,  when 
our  old  thirteen  colonies  had  united  to  form  our  early  country,  the 
Union  flag  of  the  thirteen  stripes  was  first  unfurled  to  the  battle 
and  the  breeze ;  and  it  was  over  our  proud  metropolis  that  this 
flag,  for  the  first  time,  waved  in  triumph  behind  a  retreating  foe. 

Welcome,  great  patriot,  to  these  enkindling  associations  !  Your 
noble  nature,  your  fidelity  to  principle,  your  labors,  triumphs, 
perils  and  sufferings,  in  your  country,  and  your  continued  and 
untiring  devotion,  in  exile,  to  the  cause  of  your  father-land,  pro- 
5 


50 


SPECIMENS  OF 


claim  you  to  be  of  kindred  spirit  with  the  immortal  men  whose 
heroism,  in  a  day  of  baptism  of  fire  and  blood,  hallowed  this  soil 
forever  to  the  lovers  of  liberty  !  Welcome,  illustrious  exile,  to  the 
sacred  inspiration,  to  the  awakening  power,  of  this  consecrated 
spot ! 

And  as,  to  bid  you  welcome,  we  come  forth  from  our  happy 
homes,  from  our  schools  of  learning  and  our  altars  of  religion,  from 
the  shops  of  a  thriving  industry  and  the  marts  of  a  prosperous 
commerce,  it  is  in  the  full  enjoyment  of  the  fruits  of  political  free- 
dom, the  quickening  power  of  the  principle  of  liberty  animating 
all  into  its  varied  life.  Would  it  were  thus  with  brave  and  unfor- 
tunate Hungary !  How  can  be  expressed  what  here  was  felt  at 
those  occurrences  that  deprived  your  people  of  their  rights,  and 
made  you  an  exile  from  home  and  country  !  We  know  the  story 
of  your  eventful  struggle.  We  see  exhibited  in  it  the  traits  of 
love  of  freedom,  of  chivalrous  heroism,  of  undying  attachment  to 
ancient  rights  and  liberties,  of  noble  self-sacrifice,  that  marked  our 
own  great  contest.  We  saw  you,  animated  by  the  glorious  ante- 
cedent of  a  thousand  years'  enjoyment  of  municipal  institutions, 
gallantly  carve  your  way,  with  your  own  good  swords,  to  national 
independence,  and  thereby  acquire  the  right  of  ordaining  your  own 
institutions.  But  then  came  the  foreign  interference  with  your 
internal  affairs,  when  your  territory  was  invaded  and  your  inde- 
pendence was  destroyed  by  the  armies  of  the  Czar.  An  indignant 
American  public  opinion  must  ever  pronounce  that  interference  to 
have  been  an  enormous  violation  of  national  law ;  and  also  pro- 
nounce that  each  nation  has  a  right  to  make  or  to  unmake  its 
government,  free  from  interference  by  any  foreign  power. 

Honored  -sir,  I  feel  how  inadequate  are  my  poor  words  to  serve 
such  an  occasion  as  to  welcome  the  representative  man  of  the  cause 
of  liberty  in  the  Old  World,  on  the  soil  where  that  cause  in  tho 
New  World  first  met  the  shock  of  regular  conflict.  Fortunately, 
the  want  is  supplied.  "The  powerful  speaker  stands  motionless 
before  us."  This  majestic  column  was  solemnly  dedicated  "  to  the 
spirit  of  national  independence."  Its  speech  to-day  is  of  welcome 
and  encouragement  to  the  illustrious  exile  whose  life  is  devoted  to 
this  noble  cause ! 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


51 


LASTING  OF  THE  CORNER-STONE  OF  BUNKER  HILL  MONUMENT. 
—  D.  Webster. 

We  live  in  a  most  extraordinary  age.  Events  so  various  and  so 
important  that  they  might  crowd  and  distinguish  centuries  are,  in 
our  times,  compressed  within  the  compass  of  a  single  life.  When 
has  it  happened  that  history  has  had  so  much  to  record,  in  the 
same  term  of  years,  as  since  the  17th  of  June,  1775  ?  Our  own 
Revolution,  which,  under  other  circumstances,  might  itself  have 
been  expected  to  occasion  a  war  of  half  a  century,  has  been  achieved ; 
twenty-four  sovereign  and  independent  states  erected,  and  a  gen- 
eral government  established  over  them,  so  safe,  so  wise,  so  free, 
so  practical,  that  we  might  well  wonder  its  establishment  should 
have  been  accomplished  so  soon,  were  it  not  far  the  greater  wonder 
that  it  should  have  been  established  at  all.  Two  or  three  millions 
of  people  have  been  augmented  to  twelve  ;  and  the  great  forests  of 
the  west  prostrated  beneath  the  arm  of  successful  industry ;  and 
the  dwellers  on  the  banks  of  the  Ohio  and  the  Mississippi  become 
the  fellow-citizens  and  neighbors  of  those  who  cultivate  the  hills  of 
New  England.  We  have  a  commerce  that  leaves  no  sea  unex- 
plored ;  navies  which  take  no  law  from  superior  force ;  revenues 
adequate  to  all  the  exigencies  of  the  government,  almost  without 
taxation ;  and  peace  with  all  nations,  founded  on  equal  rights  and 
mutual  respect. 

Europe,  within  the  same  period,  has  been  agitated  by  a  mighty 
revolution,  which,  while  it  has  been  felt  iu  the  individual  condition 
and  happiness  of  almost  every  man,  has  shaken  to  the  centre  her 
political  fabric,  and  dashed  against  one  another  thrones  which  had 
stood  tranquil  for  ages.  On  this,  our  continent,  our  own  example 
has  been  followed ;  and  colonies  have  sprung  up  to  be  nations. 
Unaccustomed  sounds  of  liberty  and  free  government  have  reached 
us  from  beyond  the  track  of  the  sun ;  and  at  this  moment  the 
dominion  of  European  power  in  this  continent,  from  the  place 
where  we  stand  to  the  south  pole,  is  annihilated  forever. 

In  the  mean  time,  both  in  Europe  and  America,  such  has  been 
the  general  progress  of  knowledge,  such  the  improvements  in  legis- 


52 


SPECIMENS  OP 


lation,  in  commerce,  in  the  arts,  in  letters,  and,  above  all,  in  liberal 
ideas,  and  the  general  spirit  of  the  age,  that  the  whole  world  seems 
changed. 

Yet,  notwithstanding  that  this  is  but  a  faint  abstract  of  the 
things  which  have  happened  since  the  day  of  the  battle  of  Bunker 
Hill,  we  are  but  fifty  years  removed  from  it ;  and  we  now  stand 
here,  to  enjoy  all  the  blessings  of  our  own  condition,  and  to  look 
abroad  on  the  brightened  prospects  of  the  world,  while  we  hold 
still  among  us  some  of  those  who  were  active  agents  in  the  scenes 
of  1775,  and  who  are  now  here,  from  every  quarter  of  New  Eng- 
land, to  visit  once  more,  and  under  circumstances  so  affecting,  I 
had  almost  said  so  overwhelming,  this  renowned  theatre  of  their 
courage  and  patriotism. 

Venerable  men  !  you  have  come  down  to  us  from  a  former  gen- 
eration. Heaven  has  bounteously  lengthened  out  your  lives,  that 
you  might  behold  this  joyous  day.  You  are  now  where  you  stood 
fifty  years  ago,  this  very  hour,  with  your  brothers  and  your  neigh- 
bors, shoulder  to  shoulder,  in  the  strife  of  your  country.  Behold 
how  altered  !  The  same  heavens  are  indeed  over  your  heads,  the 
same  ocean  rolls  at  your  feet,  —  but  all  else  how  changed  !  You 
hear  now  no  roar  of  hostile  cannon ;  you  see  no  mixed  volumes  of 
smoke  and  flame  rising  from  burning  Charlestown.  The  ground 
strewed  with  the  dead  and  the  dying,  —  the  impetuous  charge,  —  the 
steady  and  successful  repulse,  —  the  loud  call  to  repeated  assault, 
—  the  summoning  of  all  that  is  manly  to  repeated  resistance,  —  a 
thousand  bosoms  freely  and  fearlessly  bared  in  an  instant  to  what- 
ever of  terror  there  may  be  in  war  and  death ;  —  all  these  you 
have  witnessed,  but  you  witness  them  no  more.  All  is  peace. 
The  heights  of  yonder  metropolis,  its  towers  and  roofs,  which  you 
then  saw  filled  with  wives  and  children  and  countrymen  in  distress 
and  terror,  and  looking  with  unutterable  emotions  for  the  issue  of 
the  combat,  have  presented  you  to-day  with  the  sight  of  its  whole 
happy  population  come  out  to  welcome  and  greet  you  with  a  uni- 
versal jubilee.  Yonder  proud  ships,  by  a  felicity  of  position  appro- 
priately lying  at  the  foot  of  this  mount,  and  seeming  fondly  to  cling 
around  it,  are  not  means  of  annoyance  to  you,  but  your  country's 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


53 


own  means  of  distinction  and  defence.  All  is  peace ;  and  God  has 
granted  you  this  sight  of  your  country's  happiness  ere  you  slumber 
in  the  grave  forever.  He  has  allowed  you  to  behold  and  to  partake 
the  reward  of  your  patriotic  toils  ;  and  he  has  allowed  us,  your  sons 
and  countrymen,  to  meet  you  here,  and  in  the  name  of  the  present 
generation,  in  the  name  of  your  country,  in  the  name  of  liberty,  to 
thank  you ! 

But,  alas !  you  are  not  all  here !  Time  and  the  sword  have 
thinned  your  ranks  !  Prescott,  Putnam,  Stark,  Brooks,  Read, 
Pomeroy,  Bridge !  —  our  eyes  seek  for  you  in  vain  amidst  this 
broken  band !  You  are  gathered  to  your  fathers,  and  live  only 
to  your  country  in  her  grateful  remembrance,  and  your  own  bright 
example  !  But  let  us  not  too  much  grieve  that  you  have  met  the 
common  fate  of  men.  You  lived,  at  least,  long  enough  to  know  that 
your  work  had  been  nobly  and  successfully  accomplished.  You 
lived  to  see  your  country's  independence  established,  and  to  sheathe 
your  swords  from  war.  On  the  light  of  liberty  you  saw  arise  the 
light  of  peace,  like 

,e  another  morn 
Risen  on  mid-noon ;  —  " 

and  the  sky  on  which  you  closed  your  eyes  was  cloudless. 

But  —  ah  !  —  him  !  the  first  great  martyr  in  this  great  cause  ! 
Him  !  the  premature  victim  of  his  own  self-devoting  heart !  Him ! 
the  head  of  our  civil  councils,  and  the  destined  leader  of  our  mili- 
tary bands ;  whom  nothing  brought  hither,  but  the  unquenchable 
fire  of  his  own  spirit !  Him  !  cut  off  by  Providence  in  the  hour  of 
overwhelming  anxiety  and  thick  gloom ;  falling  ere  he  saw  the 
star  of  his  country  rise  ;  pouring  out  his  generous  blood,  like  water, 
before  he  knew  whether  it  would  fertilize  a  land  of  freedom  or  of 
bondage !  —  how  shall  I  struggle  with  the  emotions  that  stifle  the 
utterance  of  thy  name  !  Our  poor  work  may  perish ;  but  thine 
shall  endure!  This  monument  may  moulder  away,  —  the  solid 
ground  it  rests  upon  may  sink  down  to  a  level  with  the  sea ;  but 
thy  memory  shall  not  fail !  Wheresoever  among  men  a  heart  shall 
bo  found  that  beats  to  the  transports  of  patriotism  and  liberty,  its 
aspirations  shall  be  to  claim  kindred  with  thy  spirit ' 
5* 


54 


SPECIMENS  02 


But  the  scene  amidst  which  we  stand  does  not  permit  us  to  con- 
fine our  thoughts  or  our  sympathies  to  those  fearless  spirits  who 
hazarded  or  lost  their  lives  on  this  consecrated  spot.  We  have  the 
happiness  to  rejoice  here  in  the  presence  of  a  most  worthy  repre- 
sentation of  the  survivors  of  the  whole  Revolutionary  army. 

Veterans !  you  are  the  remnant  of  many  a  well-fought  field. 
You  bring  with  you  marks  of  honor  from  Trenton  and  Monmouth, 
from  Yorktown,  Camden,  Bennington,  and  Saratoga.  Veterans 
of  half  a  century  !  when,  in  your  youthful  days,  you  put  everything 
at  hazard  in  your  country's  cause,  good  as  that  cause  was,  and  san- 
guine as  youth  is,  still  your  fondest  hopes  did  not  stretch  onward 
to  an  hour  like  this  !  At  a  period  to  which  you  could  not  reason- 
ably have  expected  to  arrive,  at  a  moment  of  national  prosperity 
such  as  you  could  never  have  foreseen,  you  are  now  met  here  to 
enjoy  the  fellowship  of  old  soldiers,  and  to  receive  the  overflowings 
of  a  universal  gratitude. 

But  your  agitated  countenances  and  your  heaving  breasts  inform 
me  that  even  this  is  not  an  unmixed  joy.  I  perceive  that  a  tumult 
of  contending  feelings  rushes  upon  you.  The  images  of  the  dead, 
as  well  as  the  persons  of  the  living,  throng  to  your  embraces.  The 
scene  overwhelms  you,  and  I  turn  from  it.  May  the  Father  of  all 
mercies  smile  upon  your  declining  years,  and  bless  them  !  And, 
when  you  shall  here  have  exchanged  your  embraces,  —  when  you 
shall  once  more  have  pressed  the  hands  which  have  been  so  often 
extended  to  give  succor  in  adversity,  or  grasped  in  the  exultation 
of  victory,  —  then  look  abroad  into  this  lovely  land,  which  your 
young  valor  defended,  and  mark  the  happiness  with  which  it  is 
filled  ;  yea,  look  abroad  into  the  whole  earth,  and  see  what  a  name 
you  have  contributed  to  give  to  your  country,  and  what  a  praise 
you  have  added  to  freedom,  and  then  rejoice  in  the  sympathy  and 
gratitude  which  beam  upon  your  last  days  from  the  improved  con- 
dition of  mankind  ! 

It  is,  indeed,  a  touching  reflection,  that  while,  in  the  fulness  of 
our  country's  happiness,  we  rear  this  monument  to  her  honor,  we 
look  for  instruction,  in  our  undertaking,  to  a  country  which  is  now 
in  fearful  contest,  not  for  works  of  art  or  memorials  of  glory,  but 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


55 


for  her  own  existence.  Let  her  be  assured  that  she  is  not  forgotten 
in  the  wor!d ;  that  her  efforts  are  applauded,  and  that  constant 
prayers  ascend  for  her  success.  And  let  us  cherish  a  confident 
hope  for  her  final  triumph.  If  the  true  spark  of  religious  and 
civil  liberty  be  kindled,  it  will  burn.  Human  agency  cannot 
extinguish  it.  Like  the  earth's  central  fire,  it  may  be  smoth- 
ered for  a  time,  the  ocean  may  overwhelm  it,  mountains  may 
press  it  down, — but  its  inherent  and  unconquerable  force  will 
heave  both  the  ocean  and  the  land,  and  at  some  time  or  another,  in 
some  place  or  another,  the  volcano  will  break  out,  and  flame  up  to 
heaven  ! 


THE  DISINTERESTEDNESS  OF  "WASHINGTON.  —  R.  T.  Paine. 

To  the  pen  of  the  historian  must  be  resigned  the  more  arduous 
and  elaborate  tribute  of  justice  to  those  efforts  of  heroic  and  polit- 
ical virtue  which  conducted  the  American  people  to  peace  and 
liberty.  The  vanquished  foe  retired  from  our  shores,  and  left  to 
<the  controlling  genius  who  repelled  them  the  gratitude  of  his  own 
country,  and  the  admiration  of  the  world.  The  time  had  now 
arrived  which  was  to  apply  the  touchstone  to  his  integrity  —  which 
was  to  assay  the  affinity  of  his  principles  to  the  standard  of  immu- 
table right.  On  the  one  hand,  a  realm  to  which  he  was  endeared 
by  his  services  almost  invited  him  to  empire ;  on  the  other,  the 
liberty  to  whose  protection  his  life  had  been  devoted  was  the  orna- 
ment and  boon  of  human  nature.  Washington  could  not  depart 
from  his  own  great  self.  His  country  was  free  —  he  was  no  longer 
a  general.  Sublime  spectacle !  more  elevating  to  the  pride  of 
virtue  than  the  sovereignty  of  the  globe  united  to  the  sceptre  of 
ages !  Enthroned  in  the  hearts  of  his  countrymen,  the  gorgeous 
pageantry  of  prerogative  was  unworthy  the  majesty  of  his  dominion. 
That  effulgence  of  military  character  which  in  ancient  states  has 
blasted  the  rights  of  the  people  whose  renown  it  had  brightened, 
was  not  here  permitted,  by  the  hero  from  whom  it  emanated, 
to  shine  with  so  destructive  a  lustre.  Its  beams,  though  intensely 
resplendent  did  not  wither  the  young  blossoms  of  our  independence 


56 


SPECIMENS  OF 


and  liberty,  like  the  burning  bush,  flourished  unconsumed  by  the 
glory  which  surrounded  it. 

To  the  illustrious  founder  of  our  republic  was  it  reserved  to 
exhibit  the  example  of  a  magnanimity  that  commanded  victory, 
of  a  moderation  that  retired  from  triumph.  Unlike  the  erratic 
meteors  of  ambition,  whose  flaming  path  sheds  a  disastrous  light  on 
the  pages  of  history,  his  bright  orb,  eclipsing  the  luminaries  among 
which  it  rolled,  never  portended  "  fearful  change  "  to  religion,  nor 
from  its  "  golden  tresses  "  shook  pestilence  on  empire.  What  to 
other  heroes  has  been  glory,  would  to  him  have  been  disgrace.  To 
his  intrepidity  it  would  have  added  no  honorary  trophy,  to  have 
waded,  like  the  conqueror  of  Peru,  through  the  blood  of  credulous 
millions,  to  plant  the  standard  of  triumph  at  the  burning  mouth  of 
a  volcano.  To  his  fame  it  would  have  erected  no  auxiliary  monu- 
ment, to  have  invaded,  like  the  ravager  of  Egypt,  an  innocent 
though  barbarous  nation,  to  inscribe  his  name  on  the  pillar  of 
Pompey. 


AMERICAN  SCHOLARS  NOT  DEPENDENT  UPON  PRIVILEGED  * 
ORDERS.  —  G.  C.  Verplanck, 

In  other  lands,  pecuniary  dependence  is  too  often  connected  with 
reverence  for  rank,  so  that  they  produce  together  the  most  com- 
plete vassalage.  The  market  for  intellectual  labor  is  overstocked. 
Nature's  rich  banquet  is  crowded  with  titled  and  hereditary  guests ; 
"  the  table  is  full."  To  emerge  from  the  crowd  of  menials,  and 
obtain  some  share  of  the  feast,  the  unbidden  scholar  must  attach 
himself  to  the  train  of  a  patron,  and  feed  on  the  alms  his  niggard 
bounty  may  bestow.  Such  has  been  the  degrading  history  of 
literary  men,  poets,  authors,  and,  I  blush  to  add,  philosophers, 
throughout  the  world,  for  many  centuries.  The  facility  with  which 
a  sure  and  comfortable  subsistence  may  be  obtained  in  this  country, 
and  the  certainty  with  which  educated  talent,  directed  by  ordinary 
discretion  and  industry,  may  obtain  to  a  decent  competency,  are 
such  as  to  exclude  all  temptation,  much  more  all  necessity,  to  fol- 
low in  this  respect  the  humiliating  example  of  European  learning. 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


57 


To  such  evils  "  the  lack  of  means  need  never  drive  us."  If  daz- 
zled by  the  false  glitter  of  office,  if  bribed  by  the  doles  of  political 
patronage,  or  by  such  paltry  boons  as  private  interest  can  bestow, 
the  American  scholar  is  ever  weak  enough  to  sell  his  conscience,  or 
bow  down  his  independence  before  a  master,  he  falls  a  voluntary 
victim.  His  sin  is  his  own  :  his  own  be  the  shame.  Let  him  not 
seek  to  divide  it  with  his  country.  Is  it  not,  then,  a  glorious 
privilege,  to  be  wholly  free  from  the  necessity  of  such  dependence, 
—  never  to  be  forced  by  the  tyrannous  compulsion  of  need  to  man- 
worship,  the  meanest  of  all  idolatries?  Far  nobler,  far  happier 
than  kings  can  make  him,  is  the  lot  of  him  who  dedicates  his  life 
and  his  intellect  to  instruct  and  delight  the  people ;  who  looks  to 
them,  not  for  alms  or  bounty,  but  for  a  just  compensation  in  honor 
and  in  profit,  for  the  pleasure  or  the  instruction  he  affords  them ; 
who  seeks  to  serve  them  as  a  friend,  not  to  fawn  on  them  as  a  flat- 
terer, —  to  please  them  or  to  teach  them,  yet  as  having  a  higher 
master,  and  knowing  the  solemn  responsibility  of  one  who  acts 
upon  the  happiness  or  the  morals  of  many.  Happy  he  who,  in  the 
discharge  of  such  duties,  leads  none  into  dangerous  error,  lulls  none 
into  careless  or  contemptuous  negligence  of  right,  nor  ever  sullies 
the  whiteness  of  an  innocent  mind.  Happier,  still  happier,  he  who 
has  scattered  abroad  into  many  hearts  those  moral  seeds  whence 
benevolent  and  heroic  actions  spring  up,  who  has  "  given  ardor  to 
virtue  and  confidence  to  truth,"  or,  in  more  sacred  language,  "  has 
turned  many  unto  righteousness."  Such  genius,  fired  from  heaven's 
own  light,  will  continue  to  the  end  of  time  to  burn  and  spread, 
kindling  congenial  flames  far  and  wide,  until  they  lift  up  their 
broad,  united  blaze  on  high,  enlightening,  cheering  and  gladdening, 
the  nations  of  the  earth. 


THE  SUSPENSION  OF  DIPLOMATIC  RELATIONS  WITH  AUSTRIA, 
—  L.  Cass. 

I  do  not  mistake  the  true  position  of  my  country,  nor  do  I  seek 
to  exaggerate  her  importance.  I  am  perfectly  aware  that,  what- 
ever we  may  do  or  say,  the  immediate  march  of  Austria  will  be 


58 


SPECIMENS  OF 


onward  in  the  course  of  despotism,  with  a  step  feebler  or  firmer 
as  resistance  may  appear  near  or  remote,  till  she  is  stayed  by  one 
of  those  upheavings  of  the  people,  which  is  as  sure  to  come  as  that 
man  longs  for  freedom,  and  longs  to  strike  the  blow  which  shall 
make  it  his. 

Pride  is  blind,  and  power  tenacious ;  and  Austrian  pride  and 
power,  though  they  may  quail  before  the  signs  of  the  times,  before 
barricades  and  fraternization,  by  which  streets  are  made  fortresses 
and  armies  revolutionists,  new  and  mighty  engines  in  popular  war- 
fare, will  hold  out  in  their  citadel  till  the  last  extremity.  But 
many  old  things  are  passing  away ;  and  Austrian  despotism  will 
pass  away,  in  its  turn.  Its  bulwarks  will  be  shaken  by  the  rushing 
of  might}7  winds,  by  the  voice  of  the  world,  wherever  its  indignant 
expression  is  not  restrained  by  the  kindred  sympathies  of  arbitral 
power. 

I  desire,  sir,  not  to  be  misunderstood.  I  do  not  mean  that  in  all 
the  revolutionary  struggles  which  political  contests  bring  on  it 
would  be  expedient  for  other  governments  to  express  their  feelings 
of  interest  or  sympathy.  I  think  they  should  not ;  for  there  are 
obvious  considerations  which  forbid  such  action,  and  the  value  of 
this  kind  of  moral  interposition  would  be  diminished  by  its  too  fre- 
quent recurrence.  It  should  be  reserved  for  great  events,  —  events 
marked  by  great  crimes  and  oppressions  on  the  one  side,  and  great 
exertions  and  misfortunes  on  the  other,  and  under  circumstances 
which  carry  with  them  the  sympathies  of  the  world,  like  the  par- 
tition of  Poland  and  the  subjugation  of  Hungary.  We  can  offer 
public  congratulations,  as  we  have  done,  to  people  crowned  by  suc- 
cess in  their  struggle  for  freedom.  We  can  offer  our  recognition 
of  their  independence  to  others,  as  we  have  done,  while  yet  the 
effort  was  pending.  Have  we  sympathy  only  for  the  fortunate  ? 
Or  is  a  cause  less  sacred  or  less  dear  because  it  is  prostrated  in 
the  dust  by  the  foot  of  power  ?  Let  the  noble  sentiments  of  Wash- 
ington, in  his  spirit-stirring  reply  to  the  French  minister,  answer 
these  questions  :  "Born,  sir,  in  a  land  of  liberty,  — having  early 
learned  to  estimate  its  value,  —  having,  in  a  word,  devoted  the  best 
years  of  my  life  to  its  maintenance,  —  I  rejoice  whensoever  in  any 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


59 


country  I  see  a  nation  unfold  the  banner  of  freedom.  To  call 
your  nation  brave,  were  but  common  praise.  Wonderful  people ! 
Ages  to  come  will  read  with  astonishment  the  history  of  your 
exploits." 

I  freely  confess  that  I  shall  hail  the  day  with  pleasure  when 
this  government,  reflecting  the  true  sentiments  of  the  people,  shall 
express  its  sympathy  for  struggling  millions  seeking,  in  circum- 
stances of  peril  and  oppression,  that  liberty  which  was  given  to 
them  by  God,  but  has  been  wrested  from  them  by  man.  I  do  not 
see  any  danger  to  the  true  independence  of  nations  by  such  a 
course ;  and,  indeed,  I  am  by  no  means  certain  that  the  free  inter- 
change of  public  views  in  this  solemn  manner  would  not  go  far 
towards  checking  the  progress  of  oppression,  and  the  tendency 
to  war. 


THE  TJXIOX.  —  D.  S.  Dickinson. 

But  a  few  days  since,  I  visited  the  hall  where  the  immortal 
Washington,  after  carving  out  the  liberty  which  we,  in  common 
with  twenty-five  millions  of  our  fellow-beings,  this  day  enjoy,  with 
a  victorious  yet  unpaid  army,  who  adored  him,  under  his  com- 
mand, surrendered  his  commission  and  his  sword  voluntarily  to  the 
representatives  of  a  few  exhausted  colonies.  That  sublime  occasion 
yet  imparts  its  sacred  influences  to  the  place,  and  there  is  eloquence 
in  its  silent  walls.  But  where,  said  I,  are  the  brave  and  patriotic 
spirits  who  here  fostered  the  germ  of  this  mighty  empire  ?  Alas  ! 
they  have  gone  to  their  rewards,  and  the  clods  of  the  valley  lie 
heavily  on  their  hearts ;  while  we,  their  ungrateful  children,  with 
every  element  of  good  before  us,  forgetting  the  mighty  sacrifices 
they  made  for  their  descendants,  trifle  with  the  rich  blessings  we 
inherited,  and  are  ready,  with  sacrilegious  hands,  to  despoil  the 
temple  of  liberty  which  they  reared  by  years  of  toil  and  trial,  and 
cemented  in  blood  and  tears.  0  !  could  we  not  have  deferred 
this  inhuman  struggle  until  the  departure  from  amongst  us  of  the 
Revolutionary  soldier,  with  his  bowed  and  tottering  frame,  and  his 
once  bright  eye  dimmed  ?    Ask  him  the  cost  of  liberty,  and  he 


60 


SPECIMENS  OF 


will  "  shoulder  his  crutch  and  tell  how  fields  were  won,"  and  tell 
you  of  its  priceless  value.  And  yet  we  are  shamelessly  struggling 
in  his  sight,  like  mercenary  children,  for  the  patrimony,  around 
the  death-bed  of  a  common  parent,  by  whose  industry  and  exertion 
it  was  accumulated,  before  the  heart  of  him  who  gave  them  exist- 
ence had  ceased  to  pulsate.  Amid  all  these  conflicts,  it  has  been 
my  policy  to  give  peace  and  stability  to  the  Union,  to  silence  agi- 
tation, to  restore  fraternal  relations  to  an  estranged  brotherhood, 
and  to  lend  my  feeble  aid  in  enabling  our  common  country  to 
march  onward  to  the  glorious  fruition  which  awaits  her.  I  have 
opposed,  and  will  hereafter  oppose,  the  monster  disunion,  in  any 
and  every  form,  and  howsoever  disguised,  or  in  whatsoever  condi- 
tion,—  whether  in  the  germ,  or  the  stately  upas,  with  its  wide- 
spread branches ;  whether  it  comes  from  the  North  or  the  South, 
or  the  East  or  the  West ;  and  whether  it  consists  in  denying  the 
South  her  just  rights,  or  in  her  demanding  that  to  which  she  is  not 
entitled.  The  Union  of  these  States,  in  the  true  spirit  of  the 
constitution,  is  a  sentiment  of  my  life.  It  was  the  dream  of  my 
early  years ;  it  has  been  the  pride  and  joy  of  manhood ;  and,  if  it 
shall  please  Heaven  to  spare  me  to  age,  I  pray  that  its  abiding 
beauty  may  beguile  my  vacant  and  solitary  hours.  I  do  not 
expect  a  sudden  disruption  of  the  political  bonds  which  unite  the 
states  of  this  confederacy ;  but  I  greatly  fear  a  growing  spirit 
of  jealousy  and  discontent  and  sectional  hate,  which  must,  if  per- 
mitted to  extend  itself,  finally  destroy  the  beauty  and  harmony  of 
the  fabric,  if  it  does  not  raze  it  to  its  foundation.  It  cannot  be 
maintained  by  force,  and  majorities  in  a  confederacy  should  be 
admonished  to  use  their  power  justly.  Let  no  one  suppose  that 
those  who  have  been  joined  together  will  remain  so,  despite  the 
commission  of  mutual  wrongs,  because  they  have  once  enjoyed 
each  other's  confidence  and  affection,  and  propriety  requires  them 
to  remain  united.  A  chafed  spirit,  whether  of  a  community  or  an 
individual,  may  be  goaded  beyond  endurance ;  and  the  history  of 
the  world  has  proved  that  the  season  of  desperation  which  succeeds 
is  awfully  reckless  of  consequences.  But  woe  be  to  him  by  whom 
the  offence  of  disunion  comes !    He  will  be  held  accursed  when  the 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


61 


bloody  mandates  of  Herod  and  Nero  shall  be  forgiven ;  and  be 
regarded  as  a  greater  monster  in  this  world  than  he  who,  to  sig- 
nalize his  brutal  ferocity,  reared  a  monument  of  thousands  of 
human  skulls ;  and,  in  the  next, 

"  The  common  damned  will  shun  his  society, 
And  look  upon  themselves  as  fiends  less  foul.'* 


THE  INFLUENCE  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  —  /.  A.  Dix. 

The  influence  of  Christianity  upon  the  political  condition  of 
mankind,  though  silent  and  almost  imperceptible,  has  doubtless 
been  one  of  the  most  powerful  instruments  of  its  amelioration. 
The  principles  and  the  practical  rules  of  conduct  which  it  pre- 
scribes ;  the  doctrine  of  the  natural  equality  of  men,  of  a  common 
origin,  a  common  responsibility,  and  a  common  fate;  the  lessons 
of  humility,  gentleness  and  forbearance,  which  it  teaches,  are  as 
much  at  war  with  political  as  they  are.  with  all  moral  injustice, 
oppression,  and  wrong.  During  century  after  century,  excepting 
for  brief  intervals,  the  world  too  often  saw  the  beauty  of  the  sys- 
tem marred  by  the  fiercest  intolerance  and  the  grossest  deprava- 
tion. It  has  been  made  the  confederate  of  monarchs  in  carrying 
out  schemes  of  oppression  and  fraud.  Under  its  banner  armed 
multitudes  have  been  banded  together,  and  led  on  by  martial 
prelates  to  wars  of  desolation  and  revenge.  Perpetrators  of  the 
blackest  crimes  have  purchased  from  its  chief  ministers  a  merce- 
nary immunity  from  punishment. 

But  nearly  two  thousand  years  have  passed  away,  and  no  trace 
is  left  of  the  millions  who,  under  the  influence  of  bad  passions, 
have  dishonored  its  holy  precepts ;  or  of  the  far  smaller  number 
who,  in  seasons  of  general  depravation,  have  drunk  its  current  of 
living  water  on  the  solitary  mountain  or  in  the  hollow  rock.  Its 
simple  maxims,  outliving  them  all,  are  silently  working  out  a  greater 
revolution  than  any  which  the  world  has  seen  ;  and  long  as  the 
period  may  seem  since  its  doctrines  were  first  announced,  it  is 
almost  imperceptible  when  regarded  as  one  of  the  divisions  of  that 
6 


62 


SPECIMENS  OF 


time  which  is  of  endless  duration.  To  use  the  language  of  an  elo- 
quent and  philosophical  writer,  "  The  movements  of  Providence 
are  not  restricted  to  narrow  bounds ;  it  is  not  anxious  to  deduce 
to-day  the  consequences  of  the  premises  it  laid  down  yesterday. 
It  may  defer  this  for  ages,  till  the  fulness  of  time  shall  come.  Its 
logic  will  not  be  less  conclusive  for  reasoning  slowly.  Providence 
moves  through  time  as  the  gods  of  Homer  through  space  ;  it  makes 
a  step,  and  years  have  rolled  away.  How  long  a  time,  how  many 
circumstances,  intervened  before  the  regeneration  of  the  moral 
powers  of  man  by  Christianity  exercised  its  great,  its  legitimate 
function  upon  his  social  condition !  Yet  who  can  doubt  or  mistake 
its  power  ?  " 


THE  EXAMPLE  OF  OUR  FOREFATHERS.  —  /.  Sparks 

The  instructive  lesson  of  history,  teaching  by  example,  can 
nowhere  be  studied  with  more  profit,  or  with  a  better  promise,  than 
in  the  Revolutionary  period  of  America ;  and  especially  by  us,  who 
sit  under  the  tree  our  fathers  have  planted,  enjoy  its  shade,  and 
are  nourished  by  its  fruits.  But  little  is  our  merit  or  gain,  that 
we  applaud  their  deeds,  unless  we  emulate  their  virtues.  Love  of 
country  was  in  them  an  absorbing  principle,  an  undivided  feeling ; 
not  of  a  fragment,  a  section,  but  of  the  whole  country.  Union 
was  the  arch  on  which  they  raised  the  strong  tower  of  a  nation's 
independence.  Let  the  arm  be  palsied  that  would  loosen  one  stone 
in  the  basis  of  this  fair  structure,  or  mar  its  beauty ;  the  tongue 
mute,  that  would  dishonor  their  names,  by  calculating  the  value 
of  that  which  they  deemed  without  price ! 

They  have  left  us  an  example  already  inscribed  in  the  world's 
memory  ;  an  example  portentous  to  the  aims  of  tyranny  in  every 
land ;  an  example  that  will  console  in  all  ages  the  drooping  aspira- 
tions of  oppressed  humanity.  They  have  left  us  a  written  charter 
as  a  legacy,  and  as  a  guide  to  our  course.  But  every  day  convinces 
us  that  a  written  charter  may  become  powerless.  Ignorance  may 
misinterpret  it ;  ambition  may  assail  and  faction  destroy  its  vital 
parts ;  and  aspiring  knavery  may  at  last  sing  its  requiem  on  the 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


03 


tomb  of  departed  liberty.  It  is  the  spirit  which  lives  :  in  this  are 
our  safety  and  our  hope,  —  the  spirit  of  our  fathers;  and  while  this 
dwells  deeply  in  our  remembrance,  and  its  flame  is  cherished,  ever 
burning,  ever  pure,  on  the  altar  of  our  hearts,  —  while  it  incites  us 
to  think  as  they  have  thought,  and  do  as  they  have  done,  —  the 
honor  and  the  praise  will  be  ours,  to  have  preserved  unimpaired 
the  rich  inheritance  which  they  so  nobly  achieved. 


PUBLIC  FAITH.  —  F.  Ames. 

To  expatiate  on  the  value  of  public  faith  may  pass  with  some 
men  for  declamation  ;  —  to  such  men  I  have  nothing  to  say.  To 
others  I  will  urge,  Can  any  circumstance  mark  upon  a  people 
more  turpitude  and  debasement  ?  Can  anything  tend  more  to 
make  men  think  themselves  mean,  or  degrade  to  a  lower  point 
their  estimation  of  virtue,  and  their  standard  of  action  ? 

It  would  not  merely  demoralize  mankind ;  it  tends  to  break  all 
the  ligaments  of  society,  to  dissolve  that  mysterious  charm  which 
attracts  individuals  to  the  nation,  and  to  inspire  in  its  stead  a 
repulsive  sense  of  shame  and  disgust. 

What  is  patriotism  ?  Is  it  a  narrow  affection  for  the  spot  where 
a  man  was  born  ?  Are  the  very  clods  where  we  tread  entitled  to 
this  ardent  preference  because  they  are  greener  ?  No,  sir  ;  this  is 
not  the  character  of  the  virtue,  and  it  soars  higher  for  its  object. 
It  is  an  extended  self-love,  mingling  with  all  the  enjoyments  of 
life,  and  twisting  itself  with  the  minutest  filaments  of  the  heart. 
It  is  thus  we  obey  the  laws  of  society,  because  they  are  the  la  ws 
of  virtue.  In  their  authority  we  see,  not  the  array  of  force  and 
terror,  but  the  venerable  image  of  our  country's  honor.  Every 
good  citizen  makes  that  honor  his  own,  and  cherishes  it 'not  only 
as  precious,  but  as  sacred.  He  is  willing  to  risk  his  life  in  its 
defence,  and  is  conscious  that  he  gains  protection  while  he  gives  it. 
For  what  rights  of  a  citizen  will  be  deemed  inviolable  when  a  state 
renounces  the  principles  that  constitute  their  security  ?  Or,  if  his 
life  should  not  be  invaded,  what  would  its  enjoyments  be  in  a 
country  odious  in  the  eyes  of  strangers,  and  dishonored  in  his  own  ? 


64 


SPECIMENS  OF 


Could  he  look  with  affection  and  veneration  to  such  a  country  as 
his  parent  ?  The  sense  of  having  one  would  die  within  him ;  he 
would  blush  for  his  patriotism,  if  he  retained  any ;  and  justly,  for 
it  would  be  a  vice.  He  would  be  a  banished  man  in  his  native 
land. 

I  see  no  exception  to  the  respect  that  is  paid  among  nations  to 
the  law  of  good  faith.  If  there  are  cases  in  this  enlightened  period 
when  it  is  violated,  there  are  none  when  it  is  decried.  It  is  the 
philosophy  of  politics,  the  religion  of  governments.  It  is  observed 
by  barbarians,  —  a  whiff  of  tobacco-smoke,  or  a  string  of  beads, 
gives  not  merely  binding  force,  but  sanctity,  to  treaties.  Even  in 
Algiers,  a  truce  may  be  bought  for  money,  but,  when  ratified,  even 
Algiers  is  too  wise,  or  too  just,  to  disown  and  annul  its  obligation. 
Tbus,  we  see,  neither  the  ignorance  of  savages,  nor  the  principles 
of  an  association  for  piracy  and  rapine,  permit  a  nation  to  despise 
its  engagements.  If,  sir,  there  could  be  a  resurrection  from  the 
foot  of  the  gallows,  —  if  the  victims  of  justice  could  live  again, 
collect  together  and  form  a  society,  —  they  would,  however  loath, 
soon  find  themselves  obliged  to  make  justice  —  that  justice  under 
which  they  fell  —  the  fundamental  law  of  their  state.  They  would 
perceive  it  was  their  interest  to  make  others  respect,  and  they 
would  therefore  soon  pay  some  respect  themselves  to  the  obliga- 
tions of  good  faith. 

It  is  painful,  —  I  hope  it  is  superfluous,  —  to  make  even  the 
supposition  that  America  should  furnish  the  occasion  of  this 
opprobrium.  No  !  let  me  not  even  imagine  that  a  republican  gov- 
ernment, sprung,  as  our  own  is,  from  a  people  enlightened  and 
uncorrupted,  —  a  government  whose  origin  is  right,  and  whose 
daily  discipline  is  duty,  —  can,  upon  solemn  debate,  make  its 
option  to  be  faithless,  can  dare  to  act  what  despots  dare  not  avow, 
what  our  own  example  evinces,  the  states  of  Barbary  are  unsus- 
pected of.  No !  rather  let  me  make  the-  supposition  that  Great 
Britain  refuses  to  execute  the  treaty  after  we  have  done  every- 
thing to  carry  it  into  effect.  Is  there  any  language  of  reproach 
pungent  enough  to  express  your  commentary  on  the  fact  ?  What 
would  you  say,  or,  rather,  what  would  you  not  say  ?    Would  you 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


G5 


not  tell  them,  wherever  an  Englishman  might  travel,  shame  Atould 
stick  to  him  —  he  would  disown  his  country  ?  You  would  ex- 
claim :  England !  proud  of  your  wealth,  and  arrogant  in  the  pos- 
session of  power,  blush  for  these  distinctions,  which  become  the 
vehicles  of  your  dishonor  !  Such  a  nation  might  truly  say  to  cor- 
ruption, thou  art  my  father,  and  to  the  worm,  thou  art  my  mother 
and  my  sister.  "We  should  say  of  such  a  race  of  men,  their  name 
is  a  heavier  burden  than  their  debt.  _ 


TILE  STABILITY  OF  OUR  GOVERNMENT.  —  C.  Sprague. 

If  there  be  on  the  earth  one  nation  more  than  another  whose 
institutions  must  draw  their  life-blood  from  the  individual  purity 
of  its  citizens,  that  nation  is  our  own.  Rulers  by  divine  right, 
and  nobles  by  hereditary  succession,  may,  perhaps,  tolerate  with 
impunity  those  depraving  indulgences  which  keep  the  great  mass 
abject.  Where  the  many  enjoy  little  or  no  power,  it  were  a  trick 
of  policy  to  wink  at  those  enervating  vices  which  would  rob  them 
of  both  the  ability  and  the  inclination  to  enjoy  it.  But,  in  our 
country,  where  almost  every  man,  however  humble,  bears  to  the 
omnipotent  ballot-box  his  full  portion  of  the  sovereignty,  —  where, 
at  regular  periods,  the  ministers  of  authority,  who  went  forth  to 
rule,  return  to  be  ruled,  and  lay  down  their  dignities  at  the  feet 
of  the  monarch  multitude,  —  where,  in  short,  public  sentiment  is 
the  absolute  lever  that  moves  the  political  world,  the  purity  of  the 
people  is  the  rock  of  political  safety. 

We  may  boast,  if  we  please,  of  our  exalted  privileges,  and  fondly 
imagine  that  they  will  be  eternal ;  but,  whenever  those  vices  shall 
abound  which  undeniably  tend  to  debasement,  steeping  the  poor 
and  ignorant  still  lower  in  poverty  and  ignorance,  and  thereby 
destroying  that  wholesome  mental  equality  which  can  alone  sustain 
a  self-ruled  people,  it  will  be  found,  by  woful  experience,  that  our 
happy  system  of  government,  the  best  ever  devised  for  the  intelli- 
gent and  good,  is  the  very  worst  to  be  intrusted  to  the  degraded 
and  vicious.  The  great  majority  will  then  truly  become  a  many- 
headed  monster,  to  be  tamed  and  led  at  will.  The  tremendous 
6* 


GG 


SPECIMENS  OF 


power  of  suffrage,  like  the  strength  of  the  eyeless  Nazarite,  so  far 
from  being  their  protection,  will  bat  serve  to  pull  down  upon  their 
heads  the  temple  their  ancestors  reared  for  them.  Caballers  and 
demagogues  will  find  it  an  easy  task  to  delude  those  who  have 
deluded  themselves ;  and  the  freedom  of  the  people  will  finally  be 
buried  in  the  grave  of  their  virtues.  National  greatness  may  sur- 
vive ;  splendid  talents  and  brilliant  victories  may  fling  their  delu- 
sive Justre  abroad;  —  these  can  illumine  the  darkness  that  hangs 
round  the  throne  of  a  despot,  but  their  light  will  be  like  the  bale- 
ful flame  that  hovers  over  decaying  mortality,  and  tells  of  the 
corruption  that  festers  beneath.  The  immortal  spirit  will  have 
gone ;  and  along  our  shores,  and  among  our  hills,  —  those  shores 
made  sacred  by  the  sepulchre  of  the  pilgrim,  those  hills  hallowed 
by  the  un coffined  bones  of  the  patriot,  —  even  there,  in  the  ears  of 
their  degenerate  descendants,  shall  ring  the  last  knell  of  departed 
Liberty ! 


THE  AMERICAN  UNION.  —  E.  Everett. 

It  would  be  an  unprofitable  consumption  of  time  to  attempt  to 
point  out  the  innumerable  ways  in  which  the  Union  has  auspiciously 
influenced  the  destinies  of  the  country.  Could  any  doubt  arise  on 
this  point,  it  ought  to  be  removed  by  a  glance  at  the  disastrous 
effects  of  discord  among  the  republics  of  ancient  Greece ;  among 
the  Italian  cities  in  the  middle  ages,  or  even  at  the  present  day, 
when  we  behold  that  lovely  region,  once  the  garden  of  Europe  and 
the  mistress  of  the  world,  by  the  sole  want  of  a  comprehensive 
nationality,  lying  at  the  mercy  of  foreign  foes,  and,  what  is  worse, 
of  foreign  friends ;  or  at  more  than  one  of  the  groups  of  states 
which  have  been  carved  out  of  the  colonial  dominions  of  Spain,  in 
the  southern  portions  of  this  continent.  These  are  all  so  many 
warning  examples  of  the  disastrous  effects  of  a  want  of  union 
among  kindred  states  ;  like  discordant  brothers,  in  danger  of  being 
led  into  fiercer  warfare  by  those  very  circumstances  of  common 
language  and  origin,  which,  under  a  well-adjusted  central  power, 
would  form  the  natural  cement  of  the  union. 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


67 


It  was  the  great  happiness  of  the  American  people,  that  they 
followed  the  counsels  of  their  patriotic  and  thoughtful  leaders.  In 
the  midst  of  a  wholesome  jealousy  in  favor  of  local  rights  (which 
they  carefully  secured),  and  in  opposition  to  some  strong  centrif- 
ugal tendencies,  they  had  the  discernment  to  perceive  the  advan- 
tages of  a  common  bond,  and  followed  with  steadiness  that  line  of 
policy  which  gave  us  our  constitution.  Nor  have  the  conditions 
of  our  well-being,  as  it  seems  to  me,  been  at  all  changed  in  the 
course  of  seventy-five  years.  What  was  matter  of  prospective 
prudence  on  the  morning  of  the  Revolution,  is  matter  of  experi- 
enced wisdom  now.  The  same  patriotic  instinct  (if  I  may  adhere 
to  that  language)  which  brought  the  men  of  Massachusetts  and 
Connecticut,  of  New  Hampshire  and  Rhode  Island,  side  by  side,  to 
the  summit  of  Bunker  Hill,  and  mingled  their  blood  on  that  day, 
has,  at  every  subsequent  period  of  our  national  existence,  cried  out 
not  less  loudly  for  the  preservation  of  the  Union. 

TJiere  is  one  view  of  this  subject  of  so  much  importance,  that  I 
cannot  forbear  to  present  it  more  particularly  to  your  considera- 
tion. Among  the  great  ideas  of  the  age,  we  are  authorized  in 
reckoning  a  growing  sentiment  in  favor  of  peace.  An  impression 
is  unquestionably  gaining  strength  in  the  world,  that  public  war  is 
no  less  reproachful  to  our  Christian  civilization  than  the  private 
wars  of  the  feudal  chiefs  in  the  middle  ages.  The  hope  of  adjust- 
ing national  controversies  by  seme  system  of  friendly  arbitration 
—  a  hope  which  philanthropic  minds  have  distrustfully  cherished 
in  other  periods  —  has  of  late  been  openly  avowed  by  men  of  a 
more  practical  class,  by  men  conversant  with  the  policy  of  the 
world,  and  fresh  from  its  struggles.  The  last  year  witnessed  the 
assembling  of  a  peace  convention,  of  a  very  imposing  character,  at 
Paris ;  a  similar  one  is  about  to  be  held  at  Frankfort-on-the-Main. 
Delegates  from  this  country  are  on  the  way  to  join  it.  A  congress 
of  nations  begins  to  be  regarded  as  a  practicable  measure.  States- 
men, and  orators,  and  philanthropists,  are  flattering  themselves 
that  the  countries  of  Europe,  which  have  existed  as  independent 
sovereignties  for  a  thousand  years,  and  have  never  united  in  one 
movement  since  the  crusades,  may  be  brought  into  some  commu- 


68 


SPECIMENS  OP 


nity  of  action  for  this  end.  They  are  calling  conventions  and 
digesting  projects,  by  which  governments  the  most  diverse,  — 
empires,  kingdoms,  and  republics,  —  inhabited  by  different  races 
of  men,  —  tribes  of  Solavonian,  Teutonic,  Latin  and  mixed  descent ; 
speaking  different  languages,  believing  different  creeds,  —  Greeks, 
Catholics  and  Protestants,  —  men  who  are  scarcely  willing  to  live 
on  the  same  earth  with  each  other,  or  go  to  the  same  heaven,  can 
yet  be  made  to  agree  in  some  great  plan  of  common  umpirage. 
If,  while  these  sanguine  projects  are  pursued,  —  while  we  are 
thinking  it  worth  while  to  compass  sea  and  land  in  the  expectation 
of  bringing  these  jarring  nationalities  into  some  kind  of  union,  in 
order  to  put  a  stop  to  war  ;  if,  I  say,  at  this  juncture,  the  people 
of  these  thirty  United  States,  most  of  which  are  of  the  average  size 
of  a  European  kingdom,  —  destined,  if  they  remain  a  century 
longer  at  peace  with  each  other,  to  equal  in  numbers  the  entire 
population  of  Europe,  —  states  which,  drawn  together  by  a  general 
identity  of  descent,  language  and  faith,  have  not  so  much  formed 
as  grown  up  into  a  national  confederation, — possessing,  in  its 
central  legislature,  executive  and  judiciary,  an  efficient  tribunal 
for  the  arbitration  and  decision  of  public  controversies ;  an  actual 
peace  congress,  clothed  with  all  the  powers  of  a  common  constitu- 
tion and  law,  and  with  a  jurisdiction  extending  to  the  individual 
citizen  (which  this  projected  congress  of  nations  does  not  even  hope 
to  exercise), —  if,  while  the}r  grasp  at  this  shadow  of  a  congress  of 
nations,  the  people  of  these  states  let  go  of  —  nay,  break  up  and 
scatter  to  the  winds  —  this  substantial  Union,  this  real  peace 
congress,  which  for  sixty  years  has  kept  the  country,  with  all  its 
conflicting  elements,  in  a  state  of  prosperity  never  before  equalled 
in  the  world,  — the  admiration  and  the  envy  of  mankind,  —  they 
will  commit  a  folly  for  which  the  language  we  speak  has  no  name; 
against  which,  if  we  rational  beings  should  fail  to  protest,  the 
dumb  stones  of  yonder  monument  would  immediately  cry  out  in 
condemnation  ! 

Friends  and  fellow-citizens  !  we  live  at  an  eventful  period. 
Mighty  changes  in  human  affairs  are  of  daily  occurrence,  at  home 
and  abroad.    In  Europe,  the  strongest  governments  are  shaken ; 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


C9 


the  pillars  of  tradition,  rooted  in  the  depths  of  antiquity,  are  heaved 
from  their  basis ;  and  that  fearful  war  of  opinion,  so  long  foretold, 
is  raging,  with  various  fortune,  from  Lisbon  to  Archangel.  Have 
you  not  noticed  that  in  the  midst  of  the  perplexity  and  dismay,  — 
of  the  visions  and  the  hopes,  —  of  the  crisis,  the  thoughts  of  men 
have  been  turned  more  and  more  to  what  has  passed  and  what  is 
passing  in  America  ?  They  are  looking  anxiously  to  us  for  lessons 
of  practical  freedom,  —  for  the  solution  of  that  great  mystery  of 
state,  that  the  strongest  government  is  that  which,  with  the  least 
array  of  force,  is  deepest  seated  in  the  welfare  and  affections  of 
the  people.  The  friends  of  republican  government  in  France, 
taunted  with  the  impossibility  of  making  such  a  government  effi- 
cient and  respectable,  point  to  our  example  as  the  sufficient  answer. 
Austria,  breaking;  down  beneath  the  burden  of  her  warring  races, 
offers  them  too  late  a  federal  constitution  modelled  on  our  own , 
and  even  in  England,  from  which  the  original  elements  of  our  free 
institutions  were  derived,  scarce  a  debate  arises  in  Parliament,  oa 
an  important  question,  without  reference  to  the  experience  of  the 
United  States.  The  constitutional  worship  of  mankind  is  reversed ; 
they  turn  their  faces  to  the  west.  Happy  for  them,  happy  for  us, 
should  they  behold  naught  in  this  country  to  disappoint  the  hopes 
of  progress,  to  discourage  the  friends  of  freedom,  to  strengthen  the 
arm  of  the  oppressor ;  and  may  God  grant  that  those  who  look  to 
us  for  guidance  and  encouragement  may  be  able  to  transplant  the 
germs  of  constitutional  liberty  to  the  ancient  gardens  of  the  earth, 
that  the  clouds  which  now  darken  the  horizon  of  Europe  may  clear 
away,  and  the  long-deferred  hopes  of  the  friends  of  freedom  be 
fulfilled ! 

But  chieily  let  us  trust  that  the  principles  of  our  fathers  may 
more  and  more  prevail  throughout  our  beloved  country.  W e  have 
erected  a  noble  monument  to  their  memory ;  but  we  shall  not  have 
performed  all  our  duty,  unless  we  catch  ourselves  some  portion  of 
their  spirit.  0  !  that  the  contemplation  of  their  bright  example 
and  pure  fame  might  elevate  our  minds  above  the  selfish  passions, 
the  fierce  contentions,  and  the  dark  forebodings,  of  the  day !  We 
need  the  spirit  of  75  to  guide  us  safely  amidst  the  dizzy  activities 


70 


SPECIMENS  OP 


of  the  times.  While  our  own  numbers  are  increasing  in  an  unex- 
ampled ratio,  Europe  is  pouring  in  upon  us  her  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands annually,  and  new  regions  are  added  to  our  domain,  which 
we  are  obliged  to  count  by  degrees  of  latitude  and  longitude.  In 
the  mean  time,  the  most  wonderful  discoveries  of  art,  and  the  most 
mysterious  powers  of  nature,  combine  to  give  an  almost  fearful 
increase  to  the  intensity  of  our  existence.  Machines  of  unexam- 
pled complication  and  ingenuity  have  been  applied  to  the  whole 
range  of  human  industry.  We  rush  across  the  land  and  the  sea 
by  steam ;  we  correspond  by  magnetism ;  we  paint  by  the  solar 
ray ;  we  count  the  beats  of  the  electric  clock  at  the  distance  of  a 
thousand  miles ;  —  we  do  all  but  annihilate  time  and  distance  ;  — 
and,  amidst  all  the  new  agencies  of  communication  and  action, 
the  omnipotent  press,  the  great  engine  of  modern  progress,  not 
superseded  or  impaired,  but  gathering  new  power  from  all  the  arts, 
is  daily  clothing  itself  with  louder  thunders. 

While  we  contemplate  with  admiration,  —  almost  with  awe,  — 
the  mighty  influences  which  surround  us,  and  which  demand  our 
cooperation  and  our  guidance,  let  our  hearts  overflow  with  grati- 
tude to  the  patriots  who  have  handed  down  to  us  this  great  inherit- 
ance. Let  us  strive  to  furnish  ourselves,  from  the  storehouse  of 
their  example,  with  the  principles  and  virtues  which  will  strengthen 
us  for  the  performance  of  an  honored  part  on  this  illustrious  stage. 
Let  pure  patriotism  add  its  bond  to  the  bars  of  iron  which  are 
binding  the  continent  together ;  and,  as  intelligence  shoots  with 
the  electric  spark  from  ocean  to  ocean,  let  public  spirit  and  love 
of  country  catch  from  heart  to  heart ! 


ATTENTION  THE  SOUL  OE  GENIUS.  —  0.  Dewey. 

The  favorite  idea  of  a  genius  among  us  is  of  one  who  never 
studies,  or  who  studies  nobody  can  tell  when,  —  at  midnight,  or  at 
odd  time3  and  intervals ;  and  now  and  then  strikes  out,  "  at  a 
heat,"  as  the  phrase  is,  some  wonderful  production.  "  The  young 
man,"  it  is  often  said,  "  has  genius  enough,  if  he  would  only  study." 
Now,  the  truth  is,  that  the  genius  will  study ;  it  is  that  in  the 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


71 


mind  which  does  study :  that  is  the  very  nature  of  it.  I  care  not 
to  say  that  it  will  always  use  books.  All  study  is  not  reading, 
any  more  than  all  reading  is  study. 

Attention  is  the  very  soul  of  genius ;  not  the  fixed  eye,  not 
the  poring  over  a  book,  but  the  fixed  thought.  It  is,  in  fact, 
an  action  of  the  mind  which  is  steadily  concentrated  upon  one 
idea,  or  one  series  of  ideas,  which  collects  in  one  point  the  rays 
of  the  soul,  till  they  search,  penetrate,  and  fire  the  whole  train  of 
its  thoughts.  And  while  the  fire  burns  within,  the  outside  may 
be,  indeed,  cold,  indifferent,  negligent,  absent  in  appearance ;  he 
may  be  an  idler,  or  a  wanderer,  apparently  without  aim  or  intent ; 
but  still  the  fire  burns  within.  And  what  though  "it  bursts 
forth,"  at  length,  as  has  been  said,  "  like  volcanic  fires,  with  spon- 
taneous, original,  native  force  "  ?  It  only  shows  the  intense  action 
of  the  elements  beneath.  What  though  it  breaks  forth,  like  light- 
ning from  the  cloud  ?  The  electric  fire  had  been  collecting  in  the 
firmament  through  many  a  silent,  clear,  and  calm  clay.  What 
though  the  might  of  genius  appears  in  one  decisive  blow,  struck  in 
some  moment  of  high  debate,  or  at  the  crisis  of  a  nation's  peril  ? 
That  mighty  energy,  though  it  may  have  heaved  in  the  breast  of 
Demosthenes,  was  once  a  feeble,  infant  thought.  A  mother's  eye 
watched  over  its  dawnings.  A  father's  care  guarded  its  early 
youth.  It  soon  trod,  with  youthful  steps,  the  halls  of  learning,  and 
found  other  fathers  to  wake  and  to  watch  for  it,  even  as  it  finds 
them  here.  It  went  on ;  but  silence  was  upon  its  path,  and  the 
deep  smugglings  of  the  inward  soul  silently  ministered  to  it.  The 
elements  around  breathed  upon  it,  and  u,  touched  it  to  finer  issues." 
The  golden  ray  of  heaven  fell  upon  it,  and  ripened  its  expanding 
faculties.  The  slow  revolutions  of  years  slowly  added  to  its  col- 
lected energies  and  treasures,  till,  in  its  hour  of  glory,  it  stood 
forth  embodied  in  the  form  of  living,  commanding,  irresistible  elo- 
quence. The  world  wonders  at  the  manifestation,  and  says, 
"  Strange,  strange  that  it  should  come  thus  unsought,  unpremedi- 
tated, unprepared  !  "  But  the  truth  is,  there  is  no  more  a  miracle 
in  it  than  there  is  in  the  towering  of  the  preeminent  forest-tree, 
or  in  the  flowing  of  the  mighty  and  irresistible  river,  or  in  the 
wealth  and  waving  of  the  boundless  harvest. 


72 


SPECIMENS  OF 


THE  SOUTH  AND  THE  UNION.  — A.  P.  Butler. 

There  has  been  much  said  about  the  feeling  of  a  portion  of  this 
Union,  as  being  ready  to  dissolve  it.  I  am  not  to  be  terrified  or 
controlled  by  any  imputations  of  that  kind.  This  Union  has  its 
uses,  just  according  to  the  use  that  is  made  of  it.  It  may  be  used 
as  a  great  trust  to  effect  the  greatest  ends  that  time  ever  committed 
to  human  institutions  ;  and  it  is  in  the  power  of  patriots  and  states- 
men to  make  it  subserve  these  ends.  But  when  it  shall  be  made 
a  mere  instrument  of  partial  legislation,  and  to  pander  to  the  views 
and  ends  of  hypocritical  demagogues,  it  will  cease  to  be  an  object  of 
veneration,  unless  its  worshippers  shall  belike  those  of  Juggernaut,, 
who  regard  it  as  a  pious  service  to  prostrate  themselves  and  be 
crashed  by  the  wheels  of  his  car.  I  believe  I  am  one  of  its  real 
friends,  and  the  charge  of  criminal  design  upon  its  duration  comes 
with  an  ill  grace  from  those  who  have  adhered  to  selfish  and  unjust 
purposes. 

Those  who  have  introduced  here  the  doctrines  which  we  are 
called  upon  to  question  have  no  right  to  measure  the  extent  of  my 
opposition.  What  that  measure  will  be  I  do  not  know.  I  am 
willing  to  accede  to  any  peaceful  constitutional  measure  which  will 
tend  to  preserve  the  Union  itself ;  these  means  may  be  too  long 
disregarded;  there  is  a  limit.  I  am  astonished  when  I  hear  the 
language  sometimes  used  by  the  representatives  from  the  "old 
thirteen,"  —  from  Massachusetts,  Connecticut,  Rhode  Island,  New 
York,  and  New  Jersey,  —  making  war  upon  their  brethren  of  the 
southern  sections  of  the  Union,  which  seems  to  me  but  the  policy 
that  results  in  their  own  suicide.  They  give  way  to  these  wild, 
fanatical  suggestions  of  policy,  in  disregard  of  those  admonitions 
which  should  address  themselves  to  them  from  their  past  history, 
as  well  as  in  view  of  their  future  destiny.  They  are  waging  a  war 
against  their  interest,  under  the  influence  of  feelings  which  were 
inculcated  by  their  ancestors,  and  sowing  the  seeds  of  disunion. 

I  have,  said  what  I  designed  to  say  at  this  time  ;  but  with  it  I 
would,  if  I  dared,  make  a  suggestion  to  the  administration,  which 
has  now,  in  a  measure,  the  control  of  the  destinies  of  this  country ; 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


78 


and  it  would  be  t&at  they  should  not  experiment  upon  the  disaffec- 
tion which  exists  in  one  portion  of  this  Union.  I  know,  sir,  it  is 
deeper,  far  deeper,  than  has  ever  been  exhibited  on  this  floor.  I 
fear  it  has  been  too  much  disguised.  And  it  is  not  confined  to 
South  Carolina,  as  some  seem  to  consider.  Some  would  be  glad  to 
see  her  isolated  from  others,  and  thereby  made  an  easier  victim. 
The  people  of  other  Southern  States  are  speaking  out ;  and,  if 
events  are  not  arrested,  there  will  be  but  one  voice,  and  that  voice 
will  come  from  the  mass  of  the  people.  The  press  and  politicians 
cannot  much  longer  delude  them.  What  state  may  be  the  first  to 
be  involved  in  measures  of  resistance,  I  know  not.  South  Carolina 
has  sometimes  cried  out  as  a  sentinel.  But  there  are  others  having 
greater  interests  at  stake,  and  which  will  be  put  ultimately  in  great 
danger.  They  will  look  to  their  security  and  interests,  and  all 
will  move  as  one  man.  It  is  for  those  who  have  the  destinies  of 
this  nation  in  their  hands  to  say  how  far  they  will  respect  the  feel- 
ings of  the  South. 


IGNORANCE  A  CRIME  IN  A  REPUBLIC.  —  H.  Mann. 

In  all  the  dungeous  of  the  Old  World,  where  the  strong  cham- 
pions of  freedom  are  now  pining  in  captivity  beneath  the  remorse- 
less power  of  the  tyrant,  the  morning  sun  does  not  send  a  glimmer- 
ing ray  into  their  cells,  nor  does  night  draw  a  thicker  veil  of 
darkness  between  them  and  the  world,  but  the  lone  prisoner  lifts 
his  iron-laden  arms  to  heaven  in  prayer,  that  we,  the  depositaries 
of  freedom,  and  of  human  hopes,  may  be  faithful  to  cur  sacred 
trust ;  —  while,  on  the  other  hand,  the  pensioned  advocates  of  des- 
potism stand,  with  listening  ear,  to  catch  the  first  sound  of  lawless 
violence  that  is  wafted  from  our  shores,  to  note  the  first  breach  of 
faith  or  act  of  perfidy  amongst  us,  and  to  convert  them  into  argu- 
ments against  liberty  and  the  rights  of  man. 

The  experience  of  the  ages  that  are  past,  the  hopes  of  the  ages 
that  are  yet  to  come,  unite  their  voices  in  an  appeal  to  us ;  —  they 
implore  us  to  think  more  of  the  character  of  our  people  than  of  its 
numbers  ;  to  look  upon  our  vast  natural  resources,  not  as  tempters 
7 


74 


SPECIMENS  OF 


to  ostentation  and  pride,  but  as  a  means  to  be  converted,  by  the 
refining  alchemy  of  education,  into  mental  and  spiritual  treasures ; 
they  supplicate  us  to  seek  for  whatever  complacency  or  self-satis- 
faction we  are  disposed  to  indulge,  not  in  the  extent  of  our  terri- 
tory, or  in  the  products  of  our  soil,  but  in  the  expansion  and 
perpetuation  of  the  means  of  human  happiness ;  they  beseech  us  to 
exchange  the  luxuries  of  sense  for  the  joys  of  charity,  and  thus 
give  to  the  world  the  example  of  a  nation  whose  wisdom  increases 
with  its  prosperity,  and  whose  virtues  are  equal  to  its  power.  For 
these  ends  they  enjoin  upon  us  a  more  earnest,  a  more  universal, 
a  more  religious  devotion  to  our  exertions  and  resources,  to  the 
culture  of  the  youthful  mind  and  heart  of  the  nation.  Their 
gathered  voices  assert  the  eternal  truth,  that,  in  a  republic,  igno- 
rance is  a  crime ;  and  that  private  immorality  is  not  less  an  oppro- 
brium to  the  state  than  it  is  guilt  in  the  perpetrator. 


OBEDIENCE  TO  THE  CONSTITUTION.  —  IS.  A.  Douglass. 

Our  forefathers  held  that  the  people  had  an  inherent  right  to 
establish  such  constitution  and  laws,  for  the  government  of  them- 
selves and  their  posterity,  as  they  should  deem  best  calculated  to 
insure  the  protection  of  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness ; 
and  that  the  same  might  be  altered  and  changed,  as  experience 
should  satisfy  them  to  be  necessary  and  proper.  Upon  this  prin- 
ciple the  constitution  of  the  United  States  was  formed,  and  our 
glorious  Union  established.  All  acts  of  Congress  passed  in  pursu- 
ance of  the  constitution  are  declared  to  be  the  supreme  laws  of  the 
land,  and  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  is  charged  with 
expounding  the  same.  All  officers  and  magistrates,  under  the 
federal  and  state  governments,  —  executive,  legislative,  judicial, 
and  ministerial,  —  are  required  to  take  an  oath  to  support  the  con- 
stitution, before  they  can  enter  upon  the  performance  of  their 
respective  duties.  Every  person  born  under  the  constitution  owes 
allegiance  to  it ;  and  every  naturalized  citizen  takes  an  oath  to 
support  it.    Fidelity  to  the  constitution  is  the  only  passport  to  the 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


75 


enjoyment  of  rights  under  it.  When  a  senator  elect  presents  hie 
credentials,  he  is  not  allowed  to  take  his  seat  until  he  places  his 
hand  upon  the  holy  evangelist,  and  appeals  to  his  God  for  the 
sincerity  of  his  vow  to  support  the  constitution.  He  who  does 
this  with  a  mental  reservation,  or  secret  intention  to  disregard  any 
provision  of  the  constitution,  commits  a  double  crime  —  is  morally 
guilty  of  perfidy  to  his  God,  and  treason  to  his  country ! 

If  the  constitution  of  the  United  States  is  to  be  repudiated  upon 
the  ground  that  it  is  repugnant  to  the  divine  law,  where  are  the 
friends  of  freedom  and  Christianity  to  look  for  another  and  a  bet- 
ter ?  Who  is  to  be  the  prophet  to  reveal  the  will  of  God,  and 
establish  a  theocracy  for  us  ? 

I  will  not  venture  to  inquire  what  are  to  be  the  form  and  prin- 
ciples of  the  new  government,  or  to  whom  is  to  be  intrusted  the 
execution  of  its  sacred  functions ;  for,  when  we  decide  that  the 
wisdom  of  our  Revolutionary  fathers  was  foolishness,  and  their 
piety  wickedness,  and  destroy  the  only  system  of  self-government 
that  has  ever  realized  the  hopes  of  the  friends  of  freedom  and 
commanded  the  respect  of  mankind,  it  becomes  us  to  wait  patiently 
until  the  purposes  of  the  Latter  Day  Saints  shall  be  revealed 
unto  us. 

For  my  part,  I  am  prepared  to  maintain  and  preserve  inviolate 
the  constitution  as  it  is,  with  all  its  compromises  ;  to  stand  or  fall 
by  the  American  Union,  clinging  with  the  tenacity  of  life  to  all  its 
glorious  memories  of  the  past,  and  precious  hopes  of  the  future. 


THE  HEROISM  OF  THE  PILGRIMS.  —  R.  Choate. 

If  one  were  called  on  to  select  the  most  glittering  of  the  instances 
of  military  heroism  to  which  the  admiration  of  the  world  has  been 
most  constantly  attracted,  he  would  make  choice,  I  imagine,  of  the 
instance  of  that  desperate  valor,  in  which,  in  obedience  to  the  laws, 
Leonidas  and  his  three  hundred  Spartans  cast  themselves  headlong, 
at  the  passes  of  Greece,  on  the  myriads  of  their  Persian  invaders. 
From  the  simple  page  of  Herodotus,  longer  than  from  the  Am* 


TG 


SPECIMENS  OF 


phyctionic  monument,  or  the  games  of  the  commemoration,  that 
act  speaks  still  to  the  tears  and  praise  of  all  the  world. 

J  udge  if,  that  night,  as  they  watched  the  dawn  of  the  last  morn* 
log  their  eyes  could  ever  see ;  as  they  heard  with  every  passing 
hour  the  stilly  hum  of  the  invading  host,  his  dusky  lines  stretched 
out  without  end,  and  now  almost  encircling  them  around ;  as  they 
remembered  their  unprofaned  home,  city  of  heroes  and  of  the 
mother  of  heroes, — judge  if,  watching  there,  in  the  gateway  of 
Greece,  this  sentiment  did  not  grow  to  the  nature  of  madness,  if  it 
did  not  run  in  torrents  of  literal  fire  to  and  from  the  laboring 
heart ;  and  when  morning  came  and  passed,  and  they  had  dressed 
their  long  locks  for  battle,  and  when,  at  a  little  after  noon,  the 
countless  invading  throng  was  seen  at  last  to  move,  was  it  not  with 
a  rapture,  as  if  all  the  joy,  all  the  sensation  of  life,  was  in  that  one 
moment,  that  they  cast  themselves,  with  the  fierce  gladness  of 
mountain  torrents,  headlong  on  that  brief  revelry  of  glory  ? 

I  acknowledge  the  splendor  of  that  transaction  in  all  its  aspects. 
I  admit  its  morality,  too,  and  its  useful  influence  on  every  Grecian 
heart,  in  that  greatest  crisis  of  Greece. 

And  yet,  do  you  not  think  that  whoso  could,  by  adequate 
description,  bring  before  you  that  winter  of  the  Pilgrims,  —  its 
brief  sunshine ;  the  nights  of  storm,  slow  waning ;  the  damp  and 
icy  breath,  felt  to  the  pillow  of  the  dying ;  its  destitutions,  its 
contrasts  with  all  their  former  experience  in  life,  its  utter  insula- 
tion and  loneliness,  its  death-beds  and  burials,  its  memories,  its 
apprehensions,  its  hopes;  the  consultations  of  the  prudent;  the 
prayers  of  the  pious ;  the  occasional  cheerful  hymn,  in  which  the 
strong  heart  threw  off  its  burden,  and,  asserting  its  unvanquished 
nature,  went  up,  like  a  bird  of  dawn,  to  the  skies ;  —  do  ye  not 
think  that  whoso  could  describe  them  calmly  waiting  in  that  defile, 
lonelier  and  darker  than  Thermopylae,  for  a  morning  that  might 
never  dawn,  or  might  show  them,  when  it  did,  a  mightier  arm  than 
the  Persian  raised  as  in  act  to  strike,  would  he  not  sketch  a  scene 
of  more  difficult  and  rarer  heroism  ?  A  scene,  as  Wordsworth  has 
said,  "  melancholy,  yea,  dismal,  yet  consolatory  and  full  of  joy  ;  " 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


77 


a  scene  even  better  fitted  to  succor,  to  exalt,  to  lead  the  forlorn 
hopes  of  all  great  causes,  till  tini3  shall  be  no  more  ! 

I  have  said  that  I  deemed  it  a  great  thing  for  a  nation,  in  all 
the  periods  of  its  fortunes,  to  be  able  to  look  back  to  a  race  of 
founders,  and  a  principle  of  institution,  in  which  it  might  ration- 
ally admire  the  realized  idea  of  true  heroism.  That  felicity,  that 
pride,  that  help,  is  ours.  Our  past,  with  its  great  eras,  that  of 
settlement,  and  that  of  independence,  should  announce,  should 
compel,  should  spontaneously  evolve  as  from  a  germ,  a  wise,  moral, 
and  glowing  future.  Those  heroic  men  and  women  should  not 
look  down  on  a  dwindled  posterity.  That  broad  foundation,  sunk 
below  frost  or  earthquake,  should  bear  up  something  more  perma- 
nent than  an  encampment  of  tents,  pitched  at  random,  and  struck 
when  the  trumpet  of  march  sounds  at  next  daybreak.  It  should 
bear  up,  as  by  a  natural  growth,  a  structure  in  which  generations 
may  come,  one  after  another,  to  the  great  gift  of  the  social  life. 


THE  DEATH  OF  O'CONNELL.  —  W.  H.  Seward. 

There  is  sad  news  from  Genoa.  An  aged  and  weary  pilgrim, 
who  can  travel  no  further,  passes  beneath  the  gate  -ef  one  of  her 
ancient  palaces,  saying,  with  pious  resignation,  as  he  enters  its 
silent  chambers,  "  Well,  it  is  God's  will  that  I  shall 'never  see 
Rome.  I  am  disappointed.  But  I  am  ready  to  die.  It  is  all 
right."  The  superb  though  fading  queen  of  the  Mediterranean 
holds  anxious  watch,  through  ten  long  days,  over  that  majestic 
stranger's  wasting  frame.  And  now  death  is  there  —  the  Liberator 
of  Ireland  has  sunk  to  rest  in  the  cradle  of  Columbus. 

Coincidence  beautiful  and  most  sublime !  It  was  the  very  day 
set  apart  by  the  elder  daughter  of  the  Church  for  prayer  and  sac- 
rifice throughout  the  world,  for  the  children  of  the  sacred  island, 
perishing  by  famine  and  pestilence  in  their  homes  and  in  their 
native  fields,  and  on  their  crowded  paths  of  exile,  on  the  sea  and 
in  the  havens,  and  on  the  lakes,  and  along  the  rivers  of  this  far 
distant  land.  The  chimes  rung  out  by  pity  for  his  countrymen 
7* 


78 


SPECIMENS  OF 


were  O'Connell's  fitting  knell ;  his  soul  went  forth  on  clouds  of 
incense  that  rose  from  altars  of  Christian  charity ;  and  the  mourn- 
ful anthems  which  recited  the  faith,  and  the  virtue,  and  the  endur- 
ance of  Ireland,  were  his  becoming  requiem. 

It  is  a  holy  sight  to  see  the  obsequies  of  a  soldier,  not  only  of 
civil  liberty,  but  of  the  liberty  of  conscience ;  of  a  soldier,  not 
only  of  freedom,  but  of  the  cross  of  Christ ;  of  a  benefactor,  not 
merely  of  a  race  of  people,  but  of  mankind.  The  vault  lighted  by 
suspended  worlds  is  the  temple  within  which  the  great  solemnities 
are  celebrated  ;  the  nations  of  the  earth  are  mourners ;  and  the 
spirits  of  the  just  made  perfect,  descending  from  their  golden 
thrones  on  high,  break  forth  into  songs. 

Behold,  now,  a  nation  that  needeth  not  to  speak  its  melancholy 
precedence.  The  lament  of  Ireland  comes  forth  from  palaces 
deserted,  and  from  shrines  restored ;  from  Boyne's  dark  water, 
witness  of  her  desolation,  and  from  Tara's  lofty  hill,  ever  echoing 
her  renown.  But  louder  and  deeper  yet  that  wailing  comes  from 
the  lonely  huts  on  mountain  and  on  moor,  where  the  people  of  the 
greenest  island  of  all  the  seas  are  expiring  in  the  midst  of  insuf- 
ficient though  world-wide  charities.'  Well,  indeed,  may  they 
deplore  O'Connell ;  for  they  were  his  children,  and  he  bore  them 

"  A  love  so  vehement,  so  strong,  so  pure, 
That  neither  age  could  change  nor  art  could  cure." 


DESTINY  OF  AMERICA.  —  /.  Story. 

What  is  to  be  the  destiny  of  this  republic  ?  In  proposing  this 
question,  I  drop  all  thought  of  New  England.  She  has  bound 
herself  to  the  fate  of  the  Union.  May  she  be  true  to  it,  now  and 
forever ;  true  to  it,  because  true  to  herself,  true  to  her  own  prin- 
ciples, true  to  the  cause  of  religion  and  liberty  throughout  the 
world.  I  speak,  then,  of  our  common  country ;  of  that  blessed 
mother  that  has  nursed  us  in  her  lap,  and  led  us  up  to  manhood. 
What  is  her  destiny  ?  Whither  does  the  finger  of  fate  point  ?  Is 
the  career  on  which  we  have  entered  to  be  bright  with  ages  of 


A.'  IEHICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


onward  and  upward  glory  ?  Or  is  our  doom  already  recorded  in 
the  past  history  of  the  earth,  in  the  past  lessons  of  the  decline  and 
fall  of  other  republics  ? 

I  would  not  willingly  cloud  the  pleasures  of  such  a  day,  even 
with  a  transient  shade.  I  would  not  that  a  single  care  should  flit 
across  the  polished  brow  of  Hope,  if  considerations  of  the  highest 
moment  did  not  demand  our  thoughts,  and  give  us  counsel  of  our 
duties.  Who,  indeed,  can  look  around  him  upon  the  attractions 
of  this  scene,  upon  the  faces  of  the  happy  and  the  free,  the  smiles 
of  youthful  beauty,  the  graces  of  matron  virtue,  the  strong  intellect 
of  manhood,  and  the  dignity  of  age,  and  hail  these  as  the  accom- 
paniments of  peace  and  independence ;  —  who  can  look  around  him 
and  not  at  the  same  time  feel  that  change  is  written  on  all  the 
works  of  man,  —  that  the  breath  of  a  tyrant,  or  the  fury  of  a  cor- 
rupt populace,  may  destroy  in  one  hour  what  centuries  have  slowly 
consolidated  ? 

The  Old  World  has  already  revealed  to  us,  in  its  unsealed  books, 
the  beginning  and  end  of  all  its  own  marvellous  struggles  in  the 
cause  of  liberty.  Greece,  lovely  Greece,  "  the  land  of  scholars 
and  the  nurse  of  arms,"  where  sister  republics  in  fair  possessions 
chanted  the  praises  of  liberty  and  the  gods,  —  where,  and  what  is 
she  ?  For  two  thousand  years  the  oppressor  has  bound  her  to  the 
earth.  Her  arts  are  no  more.  The  last  sad  relics  of  her  temples 
are  but  the  barracks  of  a  ruthless  soldiery ;  the  fragments  of  her 
columns  and  her  palaces  are  in  the  dust,  yet  beautiful  in  ruin. 
She  fell  not  when  the  mighty  were  upon  her.  Her  sons  were 
united  at  Thermopylae  and  Marathon,  and  the  tide  of  her  triumph 
rolled  back  upon  the  Hellespont.  She  was  conquered  by  her  own 
factions.  She  fell  by  the  hands  of  her  own  people.  The  man  of 
Macedonia,  did  not  the  work  of  destruction.  It  was  already  done, 
by  her  own  corruptions,  banishments,  and  dissensions.  Rome, 
republican  Home,  whose  eagles  glanced  in  the  rising  and  setting 
sun,  —  where  and  what  is  she  ?  The  eternal  city  yet  remains, 
proud  even  in  her  desolation,  noble  in  her  decline,  venerable  in  the 
majesty  of  religion,  and  calm  as  in  the  composure  of  death ! 

And  where  are  the  republics  of  modern  times,  which  clustered 


50 


SPECIMENS  OF 


round  immortal  Italy?  Venice  and  Genoa  exist  but  in  name. 
The  Alps,  indeed,  look  down  upon  the  brave  and  peaceful  Swiss  in 
their  native  fastnesses ;  bat  the  guarantee  of  their  freedom  is  in 
their  weakness,  and  not  in  their  strength.  The  mountains  are  not 
easily  crossed,  and  the  valleys  are  not  easily  retained.  When  the 
invader  comes,  he  moves  like  an  avalanche,  carrying  destruction  in 
his  path. 

We  stand  the  latest,  and,  if  we  fail,  probably  the  last  experi- 
ment of  self-government  by  the  people.  We  have  begun  it  under 
circumstances  of  the  most  auspicious  nature.  We  are  in  the  vigor 
of  youth.  Our  growth  has  never  been  checked  by  the  oppressions 
of  tyranny.  Our  constitutions  have  never  been  enfeebled  by  the 
vices  or  luKuries  of  the  Old  World.  Such  as  we  are,  we  have 
been  from  the  beginning,  —  simple,  hardy,  intelligent,  accustomed 
to  self-government  and  self-respect.  The  Atlantic  rolls  between 
us  and  any  formidable  foe.  Within  our  own  territory,  stretching 
through  many  degrees  of  latitude  and  longitude,  we  have  the  choice 
of  many  products,  and  many  means  of  independence.  The  gov- 
ernment is  mild.  The  press  is  free.  Religion  is  free.  Knowl- 
edge reaches,  or  may  reach,  every  home.  What  fairer  prospect 
of  success  could  be  presented  ?  What  means  more  adequate  to 
accomplish  the  sublime  end  ?  What  more  is  necessary  than  for 
the  people  to  preserve  what  they  themselves  have  created  ? 

Already  has  the  age  caught  the  spirit  of  our  institutions.  It 
has  already  ascended  the  Andes,  and  snuffed  the  breezes  of  both 
oceans.  It  has  infused  itself  into  the  life-blood  of  Europe,  and 
warmed  the  sunny  plains  of  France,  and  the  low  lands  of  Holland. 
It  has  touched  the  philosophy  of  Germany  and  the  north ;  and, 
moving  onward  to  the  south,  has  opened  to  Greece  the  lessons  of 
her  better  days. 

Can  it  be  that  America,  under  such  circumstances,  can  betray 
herself?  That  she  is  to  be  added  to  the  catalogue  of  republics, 
the  inscription  upon  whose  ruins  is,  "  They  were,  but  they  are 
not "  ?    Forbid  it,  my  countrymen  !  forbid  it,  Heaven  ! 

I  call  upon  you,  fathers,  by  the  shades  of  your  ancestors,  by  the 
dear  ashes  which  repose  in  this  precious  soil,  by  all  you  are  and 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


81 


all  you  hope  to  be,  —  resist  every  object  of  disunion ;  resist  every 
encroachment  upon  your  liberties ;  resist  every  attempt  to  fetter 
your  consciences,  or  smother  your  public  schools,  or  extinguish 
your  system  of  public  instruction. 

I  call  upon  you,  mothers,  by  that  which  never  fails  in  woman  — 
the  love  of  your  offspring ;  teach  them,  as  they  climb  your  knees,  or 
lean  on  your  bosoms,  the  blessings  of  liberty.  Swear  them  at  the 
altar,  as  with  their  baptismal  vows,  to  be  true  to  their  country, 
and  never  to  forget  or  forsake  her. 

I  call  upon  you,  young  men,  to  remember  whose  sons  you  are  — 
whose  inheritance  you  possess.  Life  can  never  be  too  short,  which 
brings  nothing  but  disgrace  and  oppression.  Death  never  comes 
too  soon,  if  necessary  in  defence  of  the  liberties  of  your  country. 

I  call  upon  you,  old  men,  for  your  counsels,  and  your  prayers, 
and  your  benedictions.  May  not  your  gray  hairs  go  down  in 
sorrow  to  the  grave  with  the  recollection  that  you  have  lived  in 
vain  !  May  not  your  last  sun  sink  in  the  west  upon  a  nation  of 
slaves  ! 

No !  I  read  in  the  destiny  of  my  country  far  better  hopes,  far 
brighter  visions.  We  who  are  now  assembled  here  must  soon  be 
gathered  to  the  congregation  of  other  days.  The  time  of  our 
departure  is  at  hand,  to  make  way  for  our  children  upon  the 
theatre  of  life.  May  God  speed  them  and  theirs  !  May  he  who, 
at  the  distance  of  another  century,  shall  stand  here  to  celebrate 
this  day,  still  look  round  upon  a  free,  happy  and  virtuous  people ! 
May  he  have  reason  to  exult  as  we  do !  May  he,  with  all  the 
enthusiasm  of  truth  as  well  as  of  poetry,  exclaim  that  here  is  still 
his  country ! 


DUTIES  OF  AMERICANS.  —  G.  S.  Hillard. 

We  may  betray  the  trust  reposed  in  us  —  we  may  most  miser- 
ably defeat  the  fond  hopes  entertained  of  us.  We  may  become 
the  scorn  of  tyrants  and  the  jest  of  slaves.  From  our  fate,  oppres- 
sion may  assume  a  bolder  fr  ;nt  of  insolence,  and  its  victims  sink 
into  a  darker  despair. 


82  SPECIMENS  OF 

In  that  event,  how  unspeakable  will  be  our  disgrace  !  with  what 
weight  of  mountains  will  the  infamy  lie  upon  our  souls!  The 
gulf  of  our  ruin  will  be  as  deep,  as  the  elevation  we  might  have 
attained  is  high.  How  wilt  thou  fall  from  heaven,  0  Lucifer,  son 
of  the  morning  !  Our  beloved  country  with  ashes  for  beauty ;  the 
golden  cord  of  our  union  broken ;  its  scattered  fragments  present- 
ing every  form  of  misrule,  from  the  wildest  anarchy  to  the  most 
ruthless  despotism  ;  our  "  soil  drenched  with  fraternal  blood ;  " 
the  life  of  man  stripped  of  its  grace  and  dignity ;  the  prizes  of 
honor  gone,  and  virtue  divorced  from  half  its  encouragements  and 
supports ;  —  these  are  gloomy  pictures,  which  I  would  not  invite 
your  imaginations  to  dwell  upon,  but  only  to  glance  at,  for  the 
sake  of  the  warning  lessons  we  may  draw  from  them. 

Remember  that  we  can  have  none  of  those  consolations  which 
sustain  the  patriot  who  mourns  over  the  undeserved  misfortunes  of 
his  country.  Our  Rome  cannot  fall,  and  we  be  innocent.  No 
conqueror  will  chain  us  to  the  car  of  his  triumph ;  no  countless 
swarm  of  Huns  and  Goths  will  bury  the  memorials  and  trophies 
of  civilized  life  beneath  a  living  tide  of  barbarism.  Our  own  sel- 
fishness, our  own  neglect,  our  own  passions,  and  our  own  vices, 
will  furnish  the  elements  of  our  destruction.  With  our  own  hands 
we  shall  tear  down  the  stately  edifice  of  our  glory.  We  shall  die 
by  self-inflicted  wounds. 

But  we  will  not  talk  of  themes  like  these.  We  will  not  think 
of  failure,  dishonor  and  despair.  We  will  elevate  our  minds  to 
the  contemplation  of  our  high  duties,  and  the  great  trust  commit- 
ted to  us.  "We  will  resolve  to  lay  the  foundations  of  our  prosperity 
on  that  rock  of  private  virtue  which  cannot  be  shaken  until  the 
laws  of  the  moral  world  are  reversed.  From  our  own  breasts  shall 
flow  the  salient  springs  of  national  increase.  Then  our  success, 
our  happiness,  our  glory,  is  inevitable.  We  may  calmly  smile  at 
all  the  croakings  of  all  the  ravens,  whether  of  native  or  foreign 
breed. 

The  w'lole  will  not  grow  weak  by  the  increase  of  its  parts.  Our 
growth  will  be  like  that  of  the  mountain  oak,  which  strikes  its 
roots  more  deeply  into  the  soil,  and  clings  to  it  with  a  closer  grasp, 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


S3 


as  its  lofty  head  is  exalted  and  its  broad  arms  Stretched  out.  The 
loud  burst  of  joy  and  gratitude  which  this,  the  anniversary  of  our 
independence,  is  breaking  from  the  full  hearts  of  a  mighty  people, 
will  never  cease  to  be  heard.  No  chasms  of  sullen  silence  will 
interrupt  its  course ;  no  discordant  notes  of  sectional  madness  mar 
the  general  harmony.  Year  after  year  will  increase  it,  by  tributes 
from  now  unpeopled  solitudes.  The  furthest  West  shall  hear  it 
and  rejoice ;  the  Oregon  shall  swell  it  with  the  voice  of  its  waters ; 
the  Rocky  Mountains  shall  fling  back  the  glad  sound  from  their 
snowy  crests. 


OUR  COUNTRY'S  ORIGIN  —  D.  Webster. 

Oun  fathers  came  hither  to  a  land  from  which  they  were  never 
to  return.  Hither  they  had  brought,  and  here  they  were  to  fix, 
their  hopes,  their  attachments,  and  their  objects.  Some  natural 
tears  they  shed,  as  they  left  the  pleasant  abodes  of  their  fathers ; 
and  some  emotions  they  suppressed,  when  the  white  cliffs  of  their 
native  country,  now  seen  for  the  last  time,  grew  dim  to  their  sight. 

A  new  existence  awaited  them  here ;  and  when  they  saw  these 
shores,  rough,  cold,  barbarous  and  barren,  as  then  they  were,  they 
beheld  their  country.  Before  they  reached  the  shore  they  had 
established  the  elements  of  a  social  system,  and  at  a  much  earlier 
period  had  settled  their  forms  of  religious  worship.  At  the 
moment  of  their  landing,  therefore,  they  possessed  institutions 
of  government  and  institutions  of  religion.  The  morning  that 
beamed  on  the  first  night  of  their  repose  saw  the  Pilgrims  already 
established  in  their  country.  There  were  political  institutions, 
and  civil  liberty,  and  religious  worship.  Poetry  has  fancied  noth- 
ing in  the  wanderings  of  heroes  so  distinct  and  characteristic. 
Here  was  man  indeed  unprotected,  and  unprovided  for,  on  the 
shore  of  a  rude  and  fearful  wilderness ;  but  it  was  politic,  intelli- 
gent and  educated  man.  Everything  was  civilized  but  the  physical 
world.  Institutions  containing  in  substance  all  that  a^es  had  done 
for  human  government  were  established  in  a  forest.  Cultivated 
mind  was  to  act  on  uncultivated  nature ;  and,  more  than  all,  a 


84 


SPECIMENS  OF 


government  and  a  country  were  to  commence  with  the  very  first 
foundations  laid  under  the  divine  light  of  the  Christian  religion. 
Happy  auspices  of  a  happy  futurity !  Who  would  wish  that  his 
country's  existence  had  otherwise  begun  ?  Who  would  desire  the 
power  of  going  back  to  the  ages  of  fable  ?  Who  would  wish  for 
an  origin  obscured  in  the  darkness  of  antiquity?  Who  would 
wish  for  other  emblazoning  of  his  country's  heraldry,  or  other 
ornaments  of  her  genealogy,  than  to  be  able  to  say  that  her  first 
existence  was  with  intelligence,  her  first  breath  the  inspirations 
of  liberty,  her  first  principle  the  truth  of  divine  religion  ? 


AGRICULTURE.  —  D.  S.  Dickinson. 

We  have  the  high  authority  of  history,  sacred  and  profane,  for 
declaring  that  agriculture  is  a  dignified  and  time-honored  calling 
—  ordained  and  favored  of  Heaven,  and  sanctioned  by  experience; 
and  we  are  invited  to  its  pursuit  by  the  rewards  of  the  past  and 
the  present,  and  the  rich  promises  of  the  future.  While  the  fierce 
spirit  of  war,  with  its  embattled  legions,  has,  in  its  proud  triumphs, 
"  whelmed  nations  in  blood  and  wrapped  cities  in  fire,"  and  filled 
the  land  with  lamentation  and  mourning,  it  has  not  brought  peace 
or  happiness  to  a  single  hearth,  dried  the  tears  of  the  widows  or 
hushed  the  cries  of  the  orphans  it  has  made,  bound  up  or  soothed 
one  crushed  or  broken  spirit,  nor  heightened  the  joys  of  domestic 
or  social  life  in  a  single  bosom.  But  how  many  dark  recesses  of 
the  earth  has  agriculture  illumined  with  its  blessings  !  How  many 
firesides  has  it  lighted  up  with  radiant  gladness  !  How  many 
hearts  has  it  made  buoyant  with  domestic  hope  !  How  often,  like 
the  good  Samaritan,  has  it  alleviated  want  and  misery,  while  the 
priest  and  Levite  of  power  have  passed  by  on  the  other  side ! 
How  many  family  altars,  and  gathering  places  of  affection,  has  it 
erected !  How  many  desolate  homes  has  it  cheered  by  its  consola- 
tions !  How  have  its  peaceful  and  gentle  influences  filled  the  land 
with  plenteousness  and  riches,  and  made  it  vocal  with  praise  and 
thanksgiving ! 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE.  85 

It  has  pleased  the  benevolent  Author  of  our  existence  to  set  in 
boundless  profusion  before  us  the  necessary  elements  for  a  high 
state  of  cultivation  and  enjoyment.  Blessings  cluster  around  us 
like  fruits  of  the  land  of  promise,  and  science  unfolds  her  treasures 
and  invites  us  to  partake,  literally  without  money  and  without 
price.  The  propensities  of  our  nature,  as  well  as  the  philosophy 
of  our  being,  serve  to  remind  us  that  man  ^as  formed  for  care  and 
labor,  for  the  acquisition  and  enjoyment  of  property,  for  society 
and  government,  to  wrestle  with  the  elements  around  him ;  and 
that,  by  an  active  exercise  of  his  powers  and  faculties  alone,  can  he 
answer  the  ends  of  his  creation,  or  exhibit  his  exalted  attributes. 
His  daily  wants,  in  all  conditions  of  life,  prompt  him  to  exertion ; 
and  the  spirit  of  acquisition,  so  deeply  implanted  in  the  human 
breast,  — that  "  ruling  passion  strong  in  death,"  so  universally  dif- 
fused through  the  whole  family  of  man,  —  is  the  parent  of  that 
laudable  enterprise  which  has  caused  the  wilderness  to  bud  and 
blossom  like  the  rose,  planted  domestic  enjoyments  in  the  lair  of 
the  beast  of  prey,  and  transformed  the  earth  from  an  uncultivated 
wild  into  one  vast  storehouse  of  subsistence  and  enjoyment.  What 
can  be  more  acceptable  to  the  patriot  or  the  philanthropist,  than 
to  behold  the  great  mass  of  mankind  raised  above  the  degrading 
influences  of  tyranny  and  indolence,  to  the  rational  enjoyment  of 
the  bounties  of  their  Creator  ?  To  see,  in  the  productions  of  man's 
magic  powers,  the  cultivated  country,  the  fragrant  meadow,  the 
waving  harvest,  the  smiling  garden,  and  the  tasteful  dwelling,  and 
himself,  chastened  by  the  precepts  of  religion  and  elevated  by  the 
refinements  of  science,  partaking  of  the  fruits  of  his  own  industry, 
with  the  proud  consciousness  that  he  eats  not  the  bread  of  idleness 
or  fraud ;  that  his  gains  are  not  met  with  the  tears  of  misfortune, 
nor  wrung  from  his  fellow  by  the  devices  of  avarice  or  extortion ; 
his  joys  heightened,  his  sorrows  alleviated,  and  his  heart  rectified, 
by  the  cheering  voice  and  heaven-born  influences  of  woman.  Well 
may  he  sit  down  under  his  own  vine  and  fig-tree  without  fear  of 
molestation,  and  his  nightly  repose  be  more  quiet  than  that  of  the 
stately  monarch  of  the  east  upon  his  down  of  cygnets,  or  the  volup- 
tuous Sybarite  upon  his  bed  of  roses. 
8 


86 


SPECIMENS  OF 


SECTIONAL  SERVICES  IN  THE  LAST  WAR.—  C.  dishing. 

The  gentleman  from  South  Carolina  taunts  us  with  counting  the 
cost  of  that  war  in  which  the  liberties  and  honor  of  the  country, 
and  the  interests  of  the  North,  as  he  asserts,  were  forced  to  go  else- 
where for  their  defence.  Will  he  sit  down  with  me  and  count  the 
cost  now  ?  Will  he  reckon  up  how  much  of  treasure  the  State  of 
South  Carolina  expended  in  that  war,  and  how  much  the  State  of 
Massachusetts? — how  much  of  the  blood  of  either  state  was 
poured  out  on  sea  or  land  ?  I  challenge  the  gentleman  to  the  test 
of  patriotism,  which  the  army  roll,  the  navy  lists,  and  the  treasury 
books,  afford*  Sir,  they  who  revile  us  for  our  opposition  to  the  last 
war  have  looked  only  to  the  surface  of  things.  They  little  know 
the  extremities  of  suffering  which  the  people  of  Massachusetts  bore 
at  that  period,  out  of  attachment  to  the  Union,  —  their  families 
beggared,  their  fathers  and  sons  bleeding  in  camps,  or  pining  in 
foreign  prisons.  They  forget  that  not  a  field  was  marshalled,  on 
this  side  of  the  mountains,  in  which  the  men  of  Massachusetts  did 
not  play  their  part  as  became  their  sires,  and  their  "  blood  fetched 
from  mettle  of  war  proof."  They  battled  and  bled,  wherever 
battle  was  fought  or  blood  drawn. 

Nor  only  by  land.  I  ask  the  gentleman,  who  fought  your  naval 
battles  in  the  last  war  ?  Who  led  you  on  to  victory  after  victory, 
on  the  ocean  and  the  lakes  ?  Whose  was  the  triumphant  prowess 
before  which  the  red  cross  of  England  paled  with  unwonted 
shames  ?  Were  they  not  men  of  New  England  ?  Were  these  not 
foremost  in  those  maritime  encounters  which  humbled  the  pride 
and  power  of  Great  Britain  ?  I  appeal  to  my  colleague  before  me 
from  our  common  county  of  brave  old  Essex,  —  I  appeal  to  my 
respected  colleagues  from  the  shores  of  the  Old  Colony.  Was 
there  a  village  or  a  hamlet  ou  Massachusetts  Bay  which  did  not 
gather  its  hardy  seamen  to  man  the  gun-decks  of  your  ships  of 
war  ?    Did  they  not  rally  to  the  battle,  as  men  flock  to  a  feast  ? 

I  beseech  the  House  to  pardon  me,  if  I  may  have  kindled,  on 
this  subject,  into  something  of  unseemly  ardor.  I  cannot  sit  tamely 
by,  in  humble  acquiescent  silence,  when  reflections,  which  I  know 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


87 


to  be  unjust,  are  cast  on  the  faith  and  honor  of  Massachusetts. 
Had  I  suffered  them  to  pass  without  admonition,  I  should  have 
deemed  that  the  disembodied  spirits  of  her  departed  children,  from 
their  ashes  mingled  with  the  dust  of  every  stricken  field  of  the 
Revolution,  —  from  their  bones  mouldering  to  the  consecrated 
earth  of  Bunker's  Hill,  of  Saratoga,  of  Monmouth,  —  would  start 
up  in  visible  shape  before  me,  to  cry  shame  on  me,  their  recreant 
countryman  !  Sir,  I  have  roamed  through  the  world,  to  find  hearts 
nowhere  warmer  than  hers,  soldiers  nowhere  braver,  patriots 
nowhere  purer,  wives  and  mothers  nowhere  truer,  maidens 
nowhere  lovelier,  green  valleys  and  bright  rivers  nowhere  greener 
or  brighter ;  and  I  will  not  be  silent,  when  I  hear  her  patriotism 
or  her  truth  questioned  with  so  much  as  a  whisper  of  detraction. 
Living,  I  will  defend  her ;  dying,  I  would  pause,  in  my  last  expir- 
ing breath,  to  utter  a  prayer  of  fond  remembrance  for  my  native 
New  England ! 


AN  APPEAL  FOR  UNION.—/.  M.  Berrien. 

I  do  not  limit  my  appeal  to  Southern  senators :  I  address  myself 
to  senators  from  whatever  quarter  of  the  Union  ;  I  appeal  to  them 
as  American  senators,  and  I  adjure  them,  by  their  recollections  of 
the  past,  by  their  hopes  of  the  future,  as  they  value  the  free  insti- 
tutions which  the  mercy  of  Providence  permits  us  to  enjoy,  —  by 
all  these  considerations,  I  entreat  them  to  unite  with  us  in  exclud- 
ing from  the  national  councils  this  demon  of  discord.  The  acqui- 
sition of  territory  which  it  is  proposed  to  accomplish  by  this  bill 
must  bring  upon  us,  with  accumulated  force,  a  question  which  even 
now  menaces  the  permanence  of  our  Union.  I  know  the  firmness 
of  your  determination  to  exert  your  constitutional  powers  to  pre- 
vent the  extension  of  our  domestic  institutions.  I  know  the 
various  considerations  which  unite  to  constitute  that  determination, 
and  to  give  to  it  its  unyielding,  irrevocable  character.  I  do  not 
mean  to  discuss  this  question  with  you,  still  less  to  speak  in  the 
language  of  menace.  That  is  alike  forbidden  by  my  respect  for 
myself,  for  you,  and  for  the  dignity  and  the  interests  of  my  con- 


8S 


SPECIMENS  OF 


stituents;  but  I  entreat  you  to  listen  to  truth,  dispassionately, 
calmly  announced  to  you. 

Your  determination  to  deny  this  right  to  the  South  is  not  more 
fixed  and  unwavering  than  theirs  to  assert  it.  You  do  not  believe 
that  Southern  men  will  silently  acquiesce  in,  will  tamely  submit 
to,  the  denial  to  them  of  that  which  in  their  deliberate  judgment 
is  the  common  right  of  all  the  people  of  the  United  States.  If  we 
have  a  right  to  acquire  territory,  —  if  that  acquisition  be  made  by 
the  common  effort  of  all  the  states,  by  the  blood  and  treasure  of 
all,  —  if  all  have  a  common  right  to  share  what  all  have  united  to 
acquire,  then  the  exclusion  of  the  South  must  result  in  one  of  two 
things.  They  must  give  an  unexampled  manifestation  of  their 
devotion  to  the  bond  of  our  Federal  Union,  by  submitting  to  this 
exclusion,  or  sadly% though  resolutely  determine,  at  whatever  haz- 
ard, and  even  against  you  their  brothers  in  that  sacred  bond,  to 
assert  and  maintain  their  rights.  You  know  them  well  enough  to 
know  which  of  these  alternatives  they  will  adopt.  I  do  most 
earnestly  hope  that  we  may  never  be  brought  to  so  fearful  a  crisis. 
The  danger  menaces  us  even  now ;  but  the  patriotism  and  intel- 
ligence of  the  American  people  will,  I  trust,  avert  it,  —  will  teach 
us,  and  will  teach  }rou,  that  our  safety,  that  your  safety,  that  the 
common  safety  of  all  alike,  forbid  the  acquisition  of  territory,  if  we 
would  continue  to  enjoy  the  precious  legacy  which  has  been  trans- 
mitted to  us,  — a  rich,  almost  boundless  domain,  capable  of  minis- 
tering to  all  our  wants,  of  gratifying  all  our  desires,  and  a  glorious 
constitution,  which  a  world  in  arms  would  vainly  assail  while  we 
rally  round  it  in  our  united  strength. 


UNION  LINKED  WITH  LIBERTY.  —  A.  Jackson. 

Witiiout  union,  our  independence  and  liberty  would  never 
have  been  achieved ;  without  union,  they  can  never  be  maintained. 
Divided  into  twenty-four,  or  even  a  smaller  number  of  separate 
communities,  we  shall  see  our  internal  trade  burdened  with  num- 
berless restraints  an"^  exactions;  communication  between  distant 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


89 


points  and  sections  obstructed,  or  cut  off ;  our  sons  made  soldiers, 
to  deluge  with  blood  the  fields  they  now  till  in  peace ;  the  mass  of 
our  people  borne  down  and  impoverished  by  taxes  to  support 
armies  and  navies;  and  military  leaders,  at  the  head  of  their  vic- 
torious legions,  becoming  our  lawgivers  and  judges.  The  loss  of 
liberty,  of  all  good  government,  of  peace,  plenty  and  happiness, 
must  inevitably  follow  a  dissolution  of  the  Union.  In  supporting 
it,  therefore,  we  support  all  that  is  dear  to  the  freeman  and  the 
philanthropist. 

The  time  at  which  I  stand  before  you  is  full  of  interest.  The 
eyes  of  all  nations  are  fixed  on  our  republic.  The  event  of  the 
existing  crisis  will  be  decisive,  in  the  opinion  of  mankind,  of  the 
practicability  of  our  federal  system  of  government.  Great  is  the 
stake  placed  in  our  hands ;  great  is  the  responsibility  which  must 
rest  upon  the  people  of  the  United  States.  Let  us  realize  the 
importance  of  the  attitude  in  which  we  stand  before  the  world. 
Let  us  exercise  forbearance  and  firmness.  Let  us  extricate  our 
country  from  the  dangers  which  surround  it,  and  learn  wisdom 
from  the  lessons  they  inculcate.  Deeply  impressed  with  the  truth 
of  these  observations,  and  under  the  obligation  of  that  solemn  oath 
which  I  am  about  to  take,  I  shall  continue  to  exert  all  my  facul- 
ties to  maintain  the  just  powers  of  the  constitution,  and  to  trans- 
mit unimpaired  to  posterity  the  blessings  of  our  Federal  Union. 

At  the  same  time,  it  will  be  my  aim  to  inculcate,  by  my  official 
acts,  the  necessity  of  exercising,  by  the  general  government,  those 
powers  only  that  are  clearly  delegated ;  to  encourage  simplicity 
and  economy  in  the  expenditures  of  the  government ;  to  raise  no 
more  money  from  the  people  than  may  be  requisite  for  these 
objects,  and  in  a  manner  that  will  best  promote  the  interests  of  all 
classes  of  the  community,  and  of  all  portions  of  the  Union.  Con- 
stantly bearing  in  mind  that,  in  entering  into  society,  "  individuals 
must  give  up  a  share  of  liberty  to  preserve  the  rest,"  it  will  be  my 
desire  so  to  discharge  my  duties  as  to  foster  with  our  brethren,  in 
all  parts  of  the  country,  a  spirit  of  liberal  concession  and  compro- 
mise ;  and,  by  reconciling  our  fellow-citizens  to  those  partial  sacri- 
fices which  they  must  unavoidably  make,  for  the  preservation  of  a 
8* 


90 


SPECIMENS  OF 


greater  good,  to  recommend  our  invaluable  government  and  Union 
to  the  confidence  and  affections  of  the  American  people.  Finally, 
it  is  my  most  fervent  prayer  to  that  Almighty  Being  before  whom 
I  now  stand,  and  who  has  kept  us  in  his  hands  from  the  infancy 
of  our  republic  to  the  present  day,  that  he  will  so  overrule  all  my 
intentions  and  actions,  and  inspire  the  hearts  of  my  fellow-citizens, 
that  we  may  be  preserved  from  dangers  of  all  kinds,  and  continue 
forever  a  united  and  happy  people. 


SUPPOSED  SPEECH  OP  JOHN  ADAMS.  — D.  Webster. 

Sink  or  swim,  live  or  die,  survive  or  perish,  I  give  my  hand 
and  my  heart  to  this  vote !  It  is  true,  indeed,  that  in  the  begin- 
ning we  aimed  not  at  independence.  But  there  is  a  divinity  which 
shapes  our  ends.  The  injustice  of  England  has  driven  us  to  arms ; 
and,  blinded  to  her  own  interest  for  our  good,  she  has  obstinately 
persisted,  till  independence  is  now  within  our  grasp.  "We  have 
but  to  reach  forth  to  it,  and  it  is  ours.  Why,  then,  should  we 
defer  the  declaration  ?  Is  any  man  so  weak  as  now  to  hope  for  a 
reconciliation  with  England,  which  shall  leave  either  safety  to  the 
country  and  its  liberties,  or  safety  to  his  own  life,  and  his  own 
honor  ?  Are  not  you,  sir,  who  sit  in  that  chair,  —  is  not  he,  our 
venerable  colleague  near  you,  — are  not  both  already  the  proscribed 
and  predestined  objects  of  punishment  and  of  vengeance  ?  Cut  off 
from  all  hope  of  royal  clemenc3r,  what  are  you,  what  can  you  be, 
while  the  power  of  England  remains,  but  outlaws  ? 

If  we  postpone  independence,  do  we  mean  to  carry  on,  or  give 
up,  the  war  ?  Do  we  mean  to  submit  to  the  measures  of  Parlia- 
ment, Boston  port-bill  and  all?  Do  we  mean  to  submit,  and 
consent  that  we  ourselves  shall  be  ground  to  powder,  and  our 
country  and  its  rights  trodden  down  in  the  dust  ?  I  know  we  do 
not  mean  to  submit.  We  never  shall  submit.  Do  we  intend  to 
violate  that  most  solemn  obligation  ever  entered  into  by  men,  — 
that  plighting,  before  God,  of  our  sacred  honor  to  Washington, 
when,  putting  him  forth  to  incur  the  dangers  of  war,  as  well  as 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


91 


the  political  hazards  of  the  times,  we  promised  to  adhere  to  him, 
in  every  extremity,  with  our  fortunes  and  our  lives  ? 

I  know  there  is  not  a  man  here  who  would  not  rather  see  a 
general  conflagration  sweep  over  the  land,  or  an  earthquake  sink  it, 
than  one  jot  or  tittle  of'  that  plighted  faith  fall  to  the  ground. 
For  myself,  having,  twelve  months  ago,  in  this  place,  moved  you 
that  George  Washington  be  appointed  commander  of  the  forces 
raised,  or  to  be  raised,  for  defence  of  American  liberty,  may  my 
right  hand  forget  its  cunning,  and  my  tongue  cleave  to  the  roof  of 
my  mouth,  if  I  hesitate  or  waver  in  the  support  I  givo  him  !  The 
war,  then,  must  go  on.   We  must  fight  it  through. 

And,  if  the  war  must  go  on,  why  put  off  longer  the  declaration 
of  independence  ?  That  measure  will  strengthen  us.  It  will  give 
us  character  abroad.  The  nations  will  then  treat  with  us,  which 
they  never  can  do  while  we  acknowledge  ourselves  subjects,  in 
arms  against  our  sovereign.  Nay,  I  maintain  that  England  herself 
will  sooner  treat  for  peace  with  us  on  the  footing  of  independence, 
than  consent,  by  repealing  her  acts,  to  acknowledge  that  her  whole 
conduct  towards  us  has  been  a  course  of  injustice  and  oppression. 
Her  pride  will  be  less  wounded  by  submitting  to  that  course  of 
things  which  now  predestinates  our  independence,  than  by  yielding 
the  points  in  controversy  to  her  rebellious  subjects.  The  former 
she  would  regard  as  the  result  of  fortune ;  the  latter,  she  would 
feel  as  her  own  deep  disgrace.  Why,  then,  sir,  do  we  not,  as  soon 
as  possible,  change  this  from  a  civil  to  a  national  war  ?  And, 
since  we  must  fight  it  through,  why  not  put  ourselves  in  a  state 
to  enjoy  all  the  benefits  of  victory,  if  we  gain  the  victory  ?  If 
we  fail,  it  can  be  no  worse  for  us.    But  we  shall  not  fail ! 

The  cause  will  raise  up  armies  ;  —  the  cause  will  create  navies. 
The  people,  —  the  people,  —  if  we  are  true  to  them,  will  carry  us, 
and  will  carry  themselves,  gloriously  through  this  struggle.  I 
care  not  how  fickle  other  people  have  been  found.  I  know  the 
people  of  these  colonies ;  and  I  know  that  resistance  to  British 
aggression  is  deep  and  settled  in  their  hearts,  and  cannot  be  eradi- 
cated. Every  colony,  indeed,  has  expressed  its  willingness  to 
follow,  if  we  but  take  the  lead.    Sir,  the  declaration  will  inspire 


92  SPECIMENS  OP 

the  people  with  increased  courage.    Instead  of  a  long  and  bloody 

war  for  restoration  of  privileges,  for  redress  of  grievances,  for 
chartered  immunities,  held  under  a  British  king,  set  before  ihem 
the  glorious  object  of  entire  independence,  and  it  will  breathe  into 
them  anew  the  breath  of  life.  Read  this  declaration  at  the  head 
of  the  army;  —  every  sword  will  be  drawn  from  its  scabbard,  and 
the  solemn  vow  uttered,  to  maintain  it,  or  to  perish  on  the  bed  of 
honor.  Publish  it  from  the  pulpit ;  —  religion  will  approve  it, 
and  the  love  of  religious  liberty  will  cling  round  it,  resolved  to 
stand  with  it,  or  fall  with  it.  Send  it  to  the  public  halls ;  pro- 
claim it  there ;  let  them  hear  it  who  heard  the  first  roar  of  the 
enemy's  cannon,  —  let  them  see  it  who  saw  their  brothers  and 
their  sons  fall  on  the  field  of  Bunker  Hill,  and  in  the  streets  of 
Lexington  and  Concord,  —  and  the  very  walls  will  cry  out  in  its 
support ! 

Sir,  I  know  the  uncertainty  of  human  affairs ;  but  I  see  clearly 
through  this  day's  business.  You  and  I,  indeed,  may  rue  it.  Wo 
may  not  live  to  see  the  time  when  this  declaration  shall  be  made 
good.  We  may  die,  —  die  colonists ;  die  slaves ;  die,  it  may  be, 
ignominiously,  and  on  the  scaffold !  Be  it  so '  be  it  so  !  If  it  be 
the  pleasure  of  Heaven  that  my  country  shall  require  the  poor 
offering  of  my  life,  the  victim  shall  be  ready,  at  the  appointed  hour 
of  sacrifice,  come  when  that  hour  may.  But,  while  I  do  live,  let 
me  have  a  country,  —  or,  at  least,  the  hope  of  a  country,  and  that 
a  free  country. 

But,  whatever  may  be  our  fate,  be  assured  that  this  declaration 
will  stand.  It  may  cost  treasure,  and  it  may  cost  blood ;  but  it 
will  stand,  and  it  will  richly  compensate  for  both.  Through  the 
thick  gloom  of  the  present,  I  see  the  brightness  of  the  future,  as 
the  sun  in  heaven.  We  shall  make  this  a  glorious,  an  immortal 
day.  When  we  are  in  our  graves,  our  children  will  honor  it. 
They  will  celebrate  it  with  thanksgiving,  with  festivity,  with  bon- 
fires, and  illuminations.  On  its  annual  return,  they  will  shed 
tears,  —  copious,  gushing  tears,  —  not  of  subjection  and  slavery, 
not  of  agony  and  distress,  — but  of  exultation,  of  gratitude,  and  of 
joy.    Sir,  before  God,  I  believe  the  hour  is  come !    My  judgment 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


93 


approves  this  measure,  and  my  whole  heart  is  in  it.  All  that  I 
have,  and  all  that  I  am,  and  all  that  I  hope,  in  this  life,  I  am  now 
ready  here  to  stake  upon  it;  and  I  leave  off  as  I  began,  that,  live 
or  die,  survive  or  perish,  I  am  for  the  declaration  !  It  is  my  living 
sentiment,  and,  by  the  blessing  of  God,  it  shall  be  my  dying  senti- 
ment, —  Independence  now,  and  Independence  forever  ! 


THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  OUR  COUNTRY.  —  C.  S.  Henry. 

It  is  but  a  few  years  since  we  entered  upon  the  conquest  of  a 
co  intry  wilder  than  Germany  in  the  days  of  Caesar,  and  ten  times 
more  extensive ;  and  yet  in  that  short  space  we  have  reached  a 
point  of  physical  development  which  twenty  centuries  have  not 
accomplished  there.  The  forests  have  fallen  down,  the  earth  has 
been  quarried,  cities  and  towns  have  sprung  up  all  over  the  im- 
mense extent  of  our  laud,  thronged  with  life,  and  resounding  with 
the  multitudinous  hum  of  traffic ;  and  from  hundreds  of  ports  the 
canvas  of  ten  thousand  sails  whitens  all  the  ocean  and  every  sea, 
bearing  the  products  of  our  soil  and  manufactures,  and  bringing 
back  the  wealth  and  luxuries  of  every  quarter  of  the  globe.  Then, 
too,  the  tremendous  agencies  of  nature  —  the  awful  forces  evolved 
by  chemical  and  dynamic  science  —  have  been  subdued  to  man's 
dominion,  and  have  become  submissive  ministers  to  his  will,  more 
prompt  and  more  powerful  than  the  old  fabled  genii  of  the  Arabian 
tales.  Little  did  our  fathers,  little  did  we  ourselves,  even  the 
youngest  of  us,  dream,  in  the  days  of  our  childhood,  when  we 
fed  our  wondering  imaginations  with  the  prodigies  wrought  by 
those  elemental  spirits  evoked  by  the  talismanic  seal  of  Solomon, 
that  these  were  but  faint  foreshadowings  of  what  our  eyes  should 
see  in  the  familiar  goings  on  of  the  every-day  life  around  us.  Yet 
so  it  truly  is.  Ha!  gentlemen,  the  steam-engine  is  your  true 
elemental  spirit;  it  more  than  realizes  the  gorgeous  ideas  of 
the  old  oriental  imagination.  That  had  its  different  orders  of 
elemental  spirits,  —  genii  of  fire,  of  water,  of  earth,  and  of  air, 
whose  everlasting  hostility  could  never  be  subdued  to  unity  of  pur- 


94 


SPECIMENS  OF 


pose :  this  comixes  the  powers .  of  all  in  one,  and  a  child  may 
control  them !  Across  the  ocean,  along  our  coast,  through  the 
length  of  a  hundred  rivers,  with  the  speed  of  wind,  we  plough  our 
way  against  currents,  wind  and  tide ;  while,  on  iron  roads,  through 
the  length  and  breadth  of  the  land,  innumerable  trains,  thronged 
with  human  life  and  freighted  with  the  wealth  of  the  nation,  are 
urging  their  way  in  every  direction,  —  flying  through  the  valleys, 
thundering  across  the  rivers,  panting  up  the  sides  or  piercing 
through  the  hearts  of  the  mountains,  with  the  resistless  force  of 
lightning,  and  scarcely  less  swift ! 

All  this  is  wonderful !  The  old  limitations  to  human  endeavor 
seem  to  be  broken  through ;  the  everlasting  conditions  of  time  and 
space  seem  to  be  annulled  !  Meanwhile  the  magnificent  achieve- 
ments of  to-day  lead  but  to  grander  projects  for  to-morrow.  Suc- 
cess in  the  past  serves  but  to  enlarge  the  purposes  of  the  future ; 
and  the  people  are  rushing  onward  in  a  career  of  physical  develop- 
ment to  which  no  bounds  can  be  assigned. 


THE  SOUTH.  —  Jef.  Davis. 

I  can  but  consider  it  as  a  tribute  of  respect  to  the  character  for 
candor  and  sincerity  which  the  South  maintains,  that  every  move- 
ment which  occurs  in  the  Southern  States  is  closely  scrutinized ; 
but  what  shall  we  think  of  the  love  for  the  Union  of  those  in 
whom  this  brings  no  corresponding  change  of  conduct,  who  con- 
tinue the  wanton  aggressions  which  have  produced  and  justify  the 
action  they  deprecate  ?  Is  it  well,  is  it  wise,  is  it  safe,  to  disregard 
these  manifestations  of  public  displeasure,  though  it  be  the  dis- 
pleasure of  a  mire  rity?  Is  it  proper,  or  prudent,  or  respectful, 
when  a  representative,  in  accordance  with  the  known  will  of  bis 
constituents,  addresses  you  the  language  of  solemn  warning,  in 
conformity  to  his  duty  to  the  constitution,  the  Union,  and  to  his 
own  conscience,  that  his  course  should  be  arraigned  as  the  declara- 
tion of  ultra  and  dangerous  opinions  ?  If  these  warnings  were 
received  in  the  spirit  they  are  given,  it  would  augur  better  for  the 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


05 


country.  It  would  give  hopes  which  are  denied  us,  if  the  press  of 
the  country  —  that  great  lever  of  public  opinion  —  would  enforce 
these  warnings,  and  bear  them  to  every  cottage,  instead  of  heaping 
abuse  upon  those  whose  ease  would  prompt  them  to  silence  — 
whose  speech,  therefore,  is  evidence  of  sincerity.  Lightly  and 
loosely  representatives  of  Southern  people  have  been  denounced  as 
disunionists  by  that  portion  of  the  Northern  press  which  most  dis- 
turbs the  harmony  and  endangers  the  perpetuity  of  the  Union. 
Such,  even,  has  been  my  own  case ;  though  the  man  does  .not 
breathe  at  whose  door  the  charge  of  disunion  might  not  as  well  be 
laid  as  at  mine.  The  son  of  a  Revolutionary  soldier,  attachment 
to  this  Union  was  among  the  first  lessons  of  my  childhood ;  bred 
to  the  service  of  my  country  from  boyhood,  to  mature  age  I  wore 
its  uniform.  Through  the  brightest  portion  of  my  life  I  was 
accustomed  to  see  our  flag,  historic  emblem  of  the  Union,  rise  with 
the  rising  and  fall  with  the  setting  sun.  I  look  upon  it  now  with 
the  affection  of  early  love,  and  seek  to  maintain  it  by  a  strict 
adherence  to  the  constitution,  from  which  it  had  its  birth,  and  by 
the  nurture  of  which  its  stars  have  come  so  much  to  outnumber  its 
original  stripes.  Shall  that  flag,  which  has  gathered  fresh  glory 
in  every  war,  and  become  more  radiant  still  by  the  conquest  of 
peace,  —  shall  that  flag  now  be  torn  by  domestic  faction,  and  trod- 
den in  the  dust  by  petty  sectional  rivalry  ?  Shall  we  of  the  South, 
who  have  shared  equally  with  you  all  your  toils,  all  your  dangers, 
all  your  adversities,  and  who  equally  rejoice  in  your  prosperity 
and  your  fame,  —  shall  we  be  denied  those  benefits  guaranteed  by 
our  compact,  or  gathered  as  the  common  fruits  of  a  common  coun- 
try ?  If  so,  self-respect  requires  that  we  should  assert  them,  and, 
as  best  we  may,  maintain  that  which  we  could  not  surrender  with- 
out losing  your  respect,  as  well  as  our  own. 

If,  sir,  this  spirit  of  sectional  aggrandizement  shall  cause  the 
disunion  of  these  states,  the  last  chapter  of  our  history  will  be  a 
sad  commentary  upon  the  justice  and  the  wisdom  of  our  people. 
That  this  Union,  replete  with  blessings  to  its  own  citizens,  and 
diffusive  of  hope  to  the  rest  of  mankind,  should  fail  a  victim  to  a 
selfish  aggrandisement  and  a  pseudo  philanthropy,  prompting  one 


06 


SPECIMENS  OP 


portion  of  the  Union  to  war  upon  the  domestic  rights  and  peace  of 
another,  would  be  a  deep  reflection  on  the  good  sense  and  patri- 
otism of  our  day  and  generation. 

Sir,  I  ask  Northern  senators  to  make  the  case  their  own :  to 
carry  to  their  own  fireside  the  idea  of  such  intrusion  and  offensive 
discrimination  as  is  offered  to  us,  —  realize  these  irritations,  so  gall- 
ing to  the  humble,  so  intolerable  to  the  haughty,  and  wake,  before 
it  is  too  late,  from  the  dream  that  the  South  will  tamely  submit. 
Measure  the  consequences  to  us  of  your  assumption,  and  ask  your- 
selves whether,  as  a  free,  honorable  and  brave  people,  you  would 
submit  to  it. 

It  is  essentially  the  characteristic  of  the  chivalrous  that  they 
never  speculate  upon  the  fears  of  any  man ;  and  I  trust  that  no 
such  speculations  will  be  made  upon  either  the  condition  or  the 
supposed  weakness  of  the  South.  They  will  bring  sad  disappoint- 
ments to  those  who  indulge  them.  Rely  upon  her  devotion  to  the 
Union  ;  rely  upon  the  feeling  of  fraternity  she  inherited,  and  has 
never  failed  to  manifest ;  rely  upon  the  nationality  and  freedom 
from  sedition  which  has  in  all  ages  characterized  an  agricultural 
people ;  give  her  justice,  sheer  justice,  and  the  reliance  will  never 
fail  you ! 


THE  FEDERAL  COMPACT.  —  G.  Morris. 

Our  situation  is  peculiar.  At  present,  our  national  compact 
can  prevent  a  state  from  acting  hostilely  towards  the  general  inter- 
est. But,  let  this  compact  be  destroyed,  and  each  state  becomes 
vested  instantaneously  with  absolute  sovereignty.  Is  there  no 
instance  of  a  similar  situation  to  be  found  in  history  ?  Look  at 
the  states  of  Greece.  By  their  divisions  they  became  at  first  vic- 
tims of  the  ambition  of  Philip,  and  were  at  length  swallowed  up 
in  the  Roman  empire.  Are  we  to  form  an  exception  to  the  gen- 
eral principles  of  human  nature,  and  to  all  the  examples  of  history  ? 
and  are  the  maxims  of  experience  to  become  false,  when  applied 
to  our  fate  ? 

Some,  indeed,  flatter  themselves  that  our  destiny  will  be  like  that 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


97 


of  Rome.  But  we  have  not  that  strong,  aristocratic  arm,  which 
can  seize  a  wretched  citizen,  scourged  almost  to  death  by  a 
remorseless  creditor,  turn  him  into  the  ranks,  and  bid  him,  as  a 
soldier,  bear  our  eagle  in  triumph  round  the  globe.  I  hope  to 
God  we  shall  never  have  such  an  abominable  institution.  But 
what,  I  ask,  will  be  the  situation  of  these  states,  organized  as  they 
now  are,  if,  by  the  dissolution  of  our  national  compact,  they  be  left 
to  themselves  ?  What  is  the  probable  result  ?  We  shall  cither 
be  victims  of  foreign  intrigue,  and,  split  into  factions,  fall  under 
the  domination  of  a  foreign  power,  or  else,  after  the  misery  and 
torment  of  civil  war,  become  the  subjects  of  a  usurping  military 
despot.  What  but  this  compact,  —  what  but  this  specific  part  of 
it,  —  can  save  us  from  ruin  !  The  judicial  power  —  that  fortress 
of  the  constitution  —  is  now  to  be  overturned.  Yes,  with  honest 
Ajax,  I  would  not  only  throw  a  shield  before  it  —  I  would  build 
around  it  a  wall  of  brass  ! 


THE  PATE  OF  THE  INDIANS.  —  /.  Story. 

There  is,  indeed,  in  the  fate  of  the  unfortunate  Indians,  much 
to  awaken  our  sympathy,  and  much  to  disturb  the  sobriety  of 
our  judgment ;  much  which  may  be  urged  to  excuse  their  own 
atrocities;  much  in  their  characters  which  betrays  us  into  an 
involuntary  admiration.  What  can  be  more  melancholy  than  their 
history  ?  By  a  law  of  their  nature,  they  seem  destined  to  a  slow 
but  sure  extinction.  Everywhere,  at  the  approach  of  the  white 
man,  they  fade  away.  We  hear  the  rustling  of  their  footsteps, 
like  that  of  the  withered  leaves  of  autumn,  and  they  are  gone  for- 
ever.   They  pass  mournfully  by  us,  and  they  return  no  more. 

Two  centuries  ago,  the  smoke  of  their  wigwams  and  the  fires  of 
their  councils  rose  in  every  valley,  from  Hudson's  Bay  to  the 
furthest  Florida,  from  the  ocean  to  the  Mississippi  and  the  lakes. 
The  shouts  of  victory  and  the  war-dance  rang  through  the  moun- 
tains and  the  glades.  The  thick  arrows  and  the  deadly  tomahawk 
whistled  through  the  forests,  and  the  hunter's  trace  and  the  dark 
encampment  startled  the  wild  beasts  in  their  lairs, 
9 


98 


SPECIMENS  OF 


But  where  are  they  ?  Where  are  the  villages,  and  warriors, 
and  youth,  the  sachems  and  the  tribes,  the  hunters  and  their  fam- 
ilies? They  have  perished.  They  are  consumed.  The  wasting 
pestilence  has  not  alone  done  the  mighty  work.  No  :  nor  famine, 
nor  war.  There  has  been  a  mightier  power,  a  moral  canker,  which 
hath  eaten  into  their  heart-cores,  —  a  plague,  which  the  touch  of 
the  white  man  communicated,  —  a  poison  which  betrayed  them 
into  a  lingering  ruin.  The  winds  of  the  Atlantic  fan  not  a  single 
region  which  they  may  now  call  their  own.  Already  the  last 
feeble  remnants  of  the  race  are  preparing  for  their  journey  beyond 
the  Mississippi.  I  see  them  leave  their  miserable  homes,  the  aged, 
the  helpless,  the  women,  and  the  warriors,  "  few  and  faint,  yet 
fearless  still." 

The  ashes  are  cold  on  their  native  hearths.  The  smoke  no 
longer  curls  round  their  lowly  cabins.  They  move  on  with  a  slow, 
unsteady  step.  The  white  man  is  upon  their  heels,  for  terror  or 
despatch ;  but  they  heed  him  not.  They  turn  to  take  a  last  look 
of  their  deserted  villages.  They  cast  a  last  glance  upon  the  graves 
of  their  fathers.  They  shed  no  tears  ;  they  utter  no  cries ;  they 
heave  no  groans.  There  is  something  in  their  hearts  which  passes 
speech.  There  is  something  in  their  looks,  not  of  vengeance  or  sub- 
mission, but  of  hard  necessity,  which  stifles  both,  which  chokes  all 
utterance,  which  has  no  aim  or  method.  It  is  courage  absorbed  in 
despair.  They  linger  but  for  a  moment.  Their  look  is  onward. 
They  have  passed  the  fatal  stream.  It  shall  never  be  repassed  by 
them ;  no,  never !  Yet  there  lies  not  between  us  and  them  an 
impassable  gulf.  They  know  and  feel  that  there  is  for  them  still 
one  remove  further,  —  not  distant,  nor  unseen.  It  is  to  the  gen- 
eral burial-ground  of  the  race  ! 


THE  LIGHT  OF  KNOWLEDGE.  —  D.  D.  Barnard. 

We  know  the  enemy  we  have  to  contend  with  —  which  is  igno- 
rance ;  and  we  know  where  to  find  him,  though  he  hath  his  hab- 
itation in  darkness.    We  are  acquainted  with  his  haunts  and  his 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


09 


associations ;  and  the  weapon  of  his  certain  destruction  is  in  our 
hands.  That  weapon  is  light,  —  the  light  of  genuine  learning- 
added  to  the  light  of  a  genuine  faith,  —  a  light  which  heretofore 
has  not  been  permitted  to  burn  with  brightness  and  purity,  chiefly 
because  it  was  not  originally  kindled  at  the  right  fountain ;  a  light 
which  has  often  gone  out  in  the  keeping  of  unfaithful  vestals ; 
which  has  often  been  hid,  when  it  should  have  been  made  mani- 
fest ;  which  has  always  been,  more  or  less,  fed  from  sources  which 
could  not  supply  or  support  it ;  which,  at  best,  has  been  kept  as  a 
lamp  to  the  feet  of  the  few,  when  it  should  have  been  made  to 
illumine  the  pathway  of  the  many ;  which,  for  the  most  part, 
having  only  glimmered  faintly  from  a  few  sequestered  and  solitary 
places,  has  served  but  to  deepen  the  shadows  of  the  general  gloom 
around  them.  This  is  that  light  which  is  now  beginning  to  be  fed 
from  better  and  purer  sources  ;  which  has  its  fountain  in  nature ; 
which  is  to  be  supplied  from  her  fulness,  by  the  aid  of  the  edu- 
cated ;  which  ought  to  be  made,  and  may  be  made,  to  increase, 
spreading  wide  and  mounting  high,  and  passing  rapidly  from  heart 
to  heart,  and  from  dwelling  to  dwelling,  till  all  the  valleys  shall 
answer  to  all  the  mountain-tops  in  one  universal  and  healthful 
glow  of  brightness  and  illumination  ! 


AN  APPEAL  TO  SOUTH  CAROLINA.  —  A.  Jackson. 

Fellow-citizens  of  my  native  state  !  Let  me  not  only  admon- 
ish you,  as  the  first  magistrate  of  our  common  country,  not  to  incur 
the  penalty  of  its  laws,  but  to  use  the  influence  that  a  father  would 
over  his  children  whom  he  saw  rushing  to  certain  ruin.  In  that 
paternal  language,  with  that  paternal  feeling,  let  me  tell  you,  my 
countrymen,  that  you  are  deluded  by  men  who  are  either  deceived 
themselves,  or  wish  to  deceive  you.  Mark  under  what  pretences 
you  have  been  led  on  to  the  brink  of  insurrection  and  treason,  on 
which  you  stand  !  First,  a  diminution  of  the  value  of  your  staple 
commodity,  lowered  by  over  production  in  other  quarters,  and  the 
consequent  diminution  in  the  value  of  your  lands,  were  the  soIq 


100 


SPECIMENS  OF 


effect  of  the  tariff  laws.  The  effects  of  those  laws  are  confessedly 
injurious,  but  the  evil  was  greatly  exaggerated  by  the  unfounded 
theory  you  were  taught  to  believe,  that  its  burthens  were  in  pro- 
portion to  your  exports,  not  to  your  consumption  of  imported 
articles.  Your  pride  was  roused  by  the  assertion  that  a  submission 
to  those  laws  was  a  state  of  vassalage,  and  that  resistance  to  them 
was  equal,  in  patriotic  merit,  to  the  opposition  our  fathers  offered 
to  the  oppressive  laws  of  Great  Britain.  You  were  told  that  this 
opposition  might  be  peaceably,  might  be  constitutionally  made,  — 
that  you  might  enjoy  all  the  advantages  of  the  Union,  and  bear 
none  of  its  burthens. 

Eloquent  appeals  to  your  passions,  to  your  state  pride,  to  your 
native  courage,  to  your  sense  of  real  injury,  were  used  to  prepare 
you  for  the  period  when  the  mask  which  concealed  the  hideous 
features  of  disunion  should  be  taken  off.  It  fell,  and  you  were 
made  to  look  with  complacency  on  objects  which,  not  long  since, 
you  would  have  regarded  with  horror. 

Contemplate  the  condition  of  that  country  of  which  you  still 
form  an  important  part.  Consider  its  government,  uniting  in  one 
bond  of  common  interest  and  general  protection  so  many  different 
states,  giving  to  all  their  inhabitants  the  proud  title  of  American 
citizens,  protecting  their  commerce,  securing  their  literature  and 
their  arts,  facilitating  their  intercommunication,  defending  their 
frontiers,  and  making  their  name  respected  in  the  remotest  parts 
of  the  earth !  Consider  the  extent  of  its  territory,  its  increasing 
and"  happy  population,  its  advance  in  arts  which  render  life  agree- 
able, and  the  sciences  which  elevate  the  mind !  See  education 
spreading  the  lights  of  religion,  humanity  and  general  information, 
into  every  cottage  in  this  wide  extent  of  our  territories  and  states ! 
Behold  it  as  the  asylum  where  the  wretched  and  the  oppressed  find 
a  refuge  and  support !  Look  on  this  picture  of  happiness  and 
honor,  and  say,  We,  too,  are  citizens  of  America  ;  Carolina  is 
one  of  these  proud  states ;  her  arms  have  defended,  her  best  blood 
has  cemented,  this  happy  Union  !  And  then  add,  if  you  can  with- 
out horror  and  remorse,  This  happy  Union  we  will  dissolve;  this 
picture  of  peace  and  prosperity  we  will  deface ;  this  free  inter- 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


101 


course  we  will  interrupt ;  these  fertile  fields  we  will  deluge  with 
blood ;  the  protection  of  that  glorious  flag  we  renounce ;  the  very 
names  of  Americans  we  discard.  And  for  what,  mistaken  men,  — 
for  what  do  you  throw  away  these  inestimable  blessings,  —  for 
what  would  you  exchange  your  share  in  the  advantages  end  honor 
of  the  Union?  For  the  dream  of  a  separate  independence,  a 
dream  interrupted  by  bloody  conflicts  with  your  neighbors,  and  a 
vile  dependence  on  a  foreign  power.  If  your  leaders  could  succeed 
in  establishing  a  separation,  what  would  be  your  situation  ?  Are 
you  united  at  home,  —  are  you  free  from  the  apprehension  of  civil 
discord,  with  all  its  fearful  consequences?  Do  our  neighboring 
republics,  every  day  suffering  some  new  revolution,  or  contending 
with  some  new  insurrection,  —  do  they  excite  your  envy  ?  But 
the  dictates  of  a  high  duty  oblige  me  solemnly  to  announce  that 
you  cannot  succeed. 

The  laws  of  the  United  States  must  be  executed.  I  have  no 
discretionary  power  on  the  subject ;  my  duty  is  emphatically  pro- 
nounced in  the  constitution.  Those  who  told  you  that  you  might 
peaceably  prevent  their  execution  deceived  you ;  they  could  not 
have  been  deceived  themselves.  They  know  that  a  forcible  oppo- 
sition could  alone  prevent  the  execution  of  the  laws,  and  they 
know  that  such  opposition  must  be  repelled.  Their  object  is  dis- 
union ;  —  but  be  not  deceived  by  names,  —  disunion  by  armed 
force  is  treason.  Are  you  really  ready  to  incur  its  guilt  ?  If  you 
are,  on  the  heads  of  the  instigators  of  the  act  be  the  dreadful  con- 
sequences ;  on  their  heads  be  the  dishonor,  but  on  yours  may  fall 
the  punishment ;  on  your  unhappy  state  will  inevitably  fall  all  the 
evils  of  the  conflict  you  force  upon  the  government  of  your  country. 
It  cannot  accede  to  the  mad  project  of  disunion,  of  which  you  would 
be  the  first  victims ;  its  first  magistrate  cannot,  if  he  would,  avoid 
the  performance  of  his  duty ;  the  consequences  must  be  fearful  for 
you,  distressing  to  your  fellow-citizens  here,  and  to  the  friends  of 
good  government  throughout  the  world.  Its  enemies  have  beheld 
our  prosperity  with  a  vexation  they  could  not  conceal ;  it  was  a 
standing  refutation  of  their  slavish  doctrines,  and  they  will  point 
to  our  discord  with  the  triumph  of  malignant  joy.  It  is  yet  in 
9* 


102 


SPECIMENS  OP 


your  power  to  disappoint  them.  There  is  yet  time  to  show  that 
the  descendants  of  the  Pinckneys,  the  Sumpters,  the  Rntfecfges, 
and  of  the  thousand  other  names  which  adorn  the  pages  of  your 
Revolutionary  history,  will  not  abandon  that  Union,  to  support 
which  so  many  of  them  fought,  and  bled,  and  died.  I  adjure  you, 
as  you  honor  their  memory,  as  you  love  the  cause  of  freedom  to 
which  they  dedicated  their  lives,  as  you  prize  the  peace  of  your 
country,  the  lives  of  its  best  citizens,  and  your  own  fair  fame,  to 
retrace  your  steps.  Snatch  from  the  archives  of  your  state  the 
disorganizing  edict  of  its  convention;  bid  its  members  to  reas- 
semble and  promulgate  the  decided  expressions  of  your  will  to 
remain  in  the  path  which  alone  can  conduct  you  to  safety,  pros- 
perity and  honor ;  —  tell  them  that,  compared  to  disunion,  all  other 
evils  are  light,  because  that  brings  with  it  an  accumulation  of  all ; 
—  declare  that  you  will  never  take  the  field  unless  the  star-span- 
gled banner  of  your  country  shall  float  over  you,  —  that  you  will 
not  be  stigmatized  when  dead,  and  dishonored  and  scorned  while 
you  live,  as  the  authors  of  the  first  attack  on  the  constitution  of 
your  country !  Its  destroyers  you  cannot  be.  You  may  disturb 
its  peace,  you  ma}'  interrupt  the  course  of  its  prosperity,  you  may 
cloud  its  reputation  for  stability,  —  but  its  tranquillity  will  be 
restored,  its  prosperity  will  return,  and  the  stain  upon  its  national 
character  will  be  transferred,  and  remain  an  eternal  blot  on  the 
memory  of  those  who  caused  the  disorder. 

Fellow-citizens  of  the  United  States  !  The  threat  of  unhallowed 
disunion,  —  the  names  of  those,  once  respected,  by  whom  it  is 
uttered,  —  the  array  of  military  force  to  support  it,  —  denote  the 
approach  of  a  crisis  in  our  affairs  on  which  the  continuance  of  our 
unexampled  prosperity,  our  political  existence,  and,  perhaps,  that 
of  all  free  governments,  may  depend.  The  conjunction  demanded 
a  free,  a  full  and  explicit  enunciation,  not  only  of  my  intentions, 
but  of  my  principles  of  action ;  and  as  the  claim  was  asserted  of  a 
right  by  a  state  to  annul  the  laws  of  the  Union,  and  even  to  secede 
from  it  at  pleasure,  a  frank  exposition  of  my  opinions  in  relation 
to  the  origin  and  form  of  our  government,  and  the  construction  I 
give  to  the  instrument  by  which  it  was  created,  seemed  to  bo 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


103 


proper.  Having  the  fullest  confidence  in  the  justness  of  the  legal 
and  constitutional  opinion  of  my  duties  which  has  been  expressed, 
I  rely  with  equal  confidence  on  your  undivided  support  in  my 
determination  to  execute  the  laws,  —  to  preserve  the  Union  by  all 
constitutional  means,  —  to  arrest,  if  possible,  by  moderate  but  firm 
measures,  the  necessity  of  a  recourse  to  force ;  and,  if  it  be  the 
will  of  Heaven  that  the  recurrence  of  its  primeval  curse  on  man 
for  the  shedding  of  a  brother's  blood  should  fall  upon  our  land, 
that  it  be  not  called  down  by  any  offensive  act  on  the  part  of  the 
United  States. 

Fellow-citizens !  the  momentous  case  is  before  you.  On  your 
undivided  support  of  your  government  depends  the  decision  of  the 
great  question  it  involves,  whether  your  sacred  Union  will  be  pre- 
served, and  the  blessings  it  secures  to  us  as  one  people  shall  be 
perpetuated.  No  one  can  doubt  that  the  unanimity  with  which 
that  decision  will  be  expressed  will  be  such  as  to  inspire  new  con- 
fidence in  republican  institutions,  and  that  the  prudence,  the  wis- 
dom and  the  courage  which  it  will  bring  to  their  defence,  will 
transmit  them  unimpaired  and  invigorated  to  our  children. 


SELF-SACRIFICING  AMBITION.  —  H.  Greeley. 

We  need  a  loftier  ideal  to  nerve  us  for  heroic  lives.  To  know 
and  feel  our  nothingness  without  regretting  it,  —  to  deem  fame, 
riches,  personal  happiness,  but  shadows  of  which  human  good  is 
the  substance,  —  to  welcome  pain,  privation,  ignominy,  so  that  the 
sphere  of  human  knowledge,  the  empire  of  virtue,  be  thereby 
extended,  —  such  is  the  soul's  temper  in  which  the  heroes  of  the 
coming  age  shall  be  cast.  When  the  stately  monuments  of  might- 
iest conquerors  shall  have  become  shapeless  and  forgotten  ruins,  the 
humble  graves  of  earth's  Howards  and  Frys  shall  still  be  freshened 
by  the  tears  of  fondly  admiring  millions,  and  the  proudest  epitaph 
shall  be  the  simple  entreaty, 

"  Write  me  as  one  who  loved  his  fellow-men." 
Say  not  that  .  thus  condemn  and  would  annihilate  ambition, 


104 


SPECIMENS  OF 


The  love  of  approbation,  of  esteem,  of  true  glory,  is  a  noble  incen- 
tive, and  should  be  cherished  to  the  end.  But  the  ambition  which 
points  the  way  to  fame  over  torn  limbs  and  bleeding  hearts,  which 
joys  in  the  Tartarean  smoke  of  the  battle-field  and  the  desolating 
tramp  of  the  war-horse,  —  that  ambition  is  worthy  only  of  "  arch- 
angel ruined."  To  make  one  conqueror's  reputation,  at  least  one 
hundred  thousand  bounding,  joyous,  sentient  beings  must  be  trans- 
formed into  writhing  and  hideous  fragments,  must  perish  untimely 
by  deaths  of  agony  and  horror,  leaving  half  a  million  widows  and 
orphans  to  bewail  their  loss  in  anguish  and  destitution.  This  is 
too  mighty,  too  awful  a  price  to  be  paid  for  the  fame  of  any  hero, 
from  Nimrod  to  Wellington.  True  fame  demands  no  such  sacri- 
fices of  others  ;  it  requires  us  to  be  reckless  of  the  outward  well- 
being  of  but  one.  It  exacts  no  hecatomb  of  victims  for  each 
triumphal  pile ;  for  the  more  who  covet  and  seek  it,  the  easier  and 
more  abundant  is  the  success  of  each  and  all.  With  souls  of  the 
celestial  temper,  each  human  life  might  be  a  triumph,  which 
angels  would  lean  from  the  skies  delighted  to  witness  and  admire. 


PARTY  SPIRIT  —  W.  Gaston.  _ 

Parties  and  party  men  may  deserve  reprobation  for  their  sel- 
fishness, their  violence,  their  errors,  or  their  wickedness.  They 
may  do  our  country  much  harm.  They  may  retard  its  growth, 
destroy  its  harmony,  impair  its  character,  render  its  institutions 
unstable,  pervert  the  public  mind,  and  deprave  the  public  morals. 
These  arc,  indeed,  evils,  and  sore  evils ;  but  the  principle  of  life- 
remains,  and  will  yet  struggle,  with  assured  success,  over  these 
temporary  maladies. 

Still  we  are  great,  glorious,  united,  and  free ;  still  we  have  a 
name  that  is  revered  abroad  and  loved  at  home,  —  a  name  which 
is  a  tower  of  strength  to  us  against  foreign  wrong,  and  a  bond  of 
internal  union  and  harmony,  —  a  name  which  no  enemy  pro- 
nounces but  with  respect,  and  which  no  citizen  hears  but  with  a 
throb  of  exultation.   Still  we  have  that  blessed  constitution,  which* 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


105 


with  all  its  pretended  defects,  and  all  its  alleged  violations,  has 
conferred  more  benefit  on  man  than  ever  yet  flowed  from  any  other 
human  institution,  —  which  has  established  justice,  insured  domes- 
tic tranquillity,  provided  for  the  common  defence,  promoted  the 
general  welfare,  and  which,  under  God,  if  we  be  true  to  ourselves, 
will  insure  the  blessings  of  liberty  to  us  and  our  posterity. 

Surely,  such  a  country,  and  such  a  constitution,  have  claims 
upon  you,  my  friends,  which  cannot  be  disregarded.  I  entreat 
and  adjure  you,  then,  by  all  that  is  near  and  dear  to  you  on  earth, 
by  all  the  obligations  of  patriotism,  by  the  memory  of  your  fathers 
who  fell  in  the  great  and  glorious  struggle,  for  the  sake  of  your 
sons,  whom  you  would  not  have  to  blush  for  your  degeneracy,  — 
by  all  your  proud  recollections  of  the  past,  and  all  the  fond  antici- 
pations of  the  future  renown  of  our  nation,  —  preserve  that  coun- 
try, uphold  that  constitution !  Resolve  that  they  shall  not  be  lost 
while  in  your  keeping ;  and  may  God  Almighty  strengthen  you  to 
perform  that  vow ! 


THE  DEATH  OF  HAMILTON".  —  A.  Nott. 

Guilty,  absurd  and  rash  as  duelling  is,  it  has  its  advocates. 
And  had  it  not  had  its  advocates,  had  not  a  strange  preponderance 
of  opinion  been  in  favor  of  it,  never,  0  lamentable  Hamilton ! 
hadst  thou  thus  fallen,  in  the  midst  of  thy  days,  and  before  thou 
hadst  reached  the  zenith  of  thy  glory ! 

0  that  I  possessed  the  talent  of  eulogy,  and  that  I  might  be 
permitted  to  indulge  the  tenderness  of  friendship,  in  paying  the 
last  tribute  to  his  memory  !  0  that  I  were  capable  of  placing  this 
great  man  before  you !  Could  I  do  this,  I  should  furnish  you  with 
an  argument,  the  most  practical,  the  most  plain,  the  most  convinc- 
ing, except  that  drawn  from  the  mandate  of  God,  that  was  ever 
furnished  against  duelling  —  that  horrid  practice,  which  has  in  an 
awful  moment  robbed  the  world  ■  of  such  exalted  worth.  But  I 
cannot  do  this ;  I  can  only  hint  at  the  variety  and  exuberance  of 
his  excellence :  — 

The  Man,  on  whom  nature  seems  originally  to  have  impressed 


106 


SPECIMENS  OF 


the  stamp  of  greatness,  whose  genius  beamed  from  the  retirement 
of  collegiate  life  with  a  radiance  which  dazzled  and  a  loveliness 
which  charmed  the  eye  of  sages. 

The  Hero,  called  from  his  sequestered  retreat,  whose  first  appear- 
ance in  the  field,  though  a  stripling,  conciliated  the  esteem  of  Wash- 
ington, our  good  old  father.  Moving  by  whose  side,  during  all 
the  perils  of  the  Revolution,  our  young  chieftain  was  a  contributor 
to  the  veteran's  glory,  the  guardian  of  his  person,  and  the  copart- 
ner of  his  toils. 

The  Conqueror,  who,  sparing  of  human  blood,  when  victory 
favored,  stayed  the  uplifted  arm,  and  nobly  said  to  the  vanquished 
enemy,  "  Live !  " 

The  Statesman,  the  correctness  of  whose  principles,  and  the 
strength  of  whose  mind,  are  inscribed  on  the  records  of  Congress, 
and  on  the  annals  of  the  council  chamber ;  whose  genius  impressed 
itself  upon  the  constitution  of  his  couritry,  and  whose  memory  me 
government  —  illustrious  fabric,  resting  on  this  basis  —  will  per- 
petuate while  it  lasts  ;  and,  shaken  by  the  violence  of  party,  should 
it  fall,  which  may  Heaven  avert,  his  prophetic  declarations  will 
be  found  inscribed  on  its  ruins. 

The  Counsellor,  who  was  at  once  the  pride  of  the  bar  and  the 
admiration  of  the  court ;  whose  apprehensions  were  quick  as  light- 
ning, and  whose  development  of  truth  was  luminous  as  its  path ; 
whose  argument  no  change  of  circumstances  could  embarrass ; 
whose  knowledge  appeared  intuitive ;  and  who  by  a  single  glance, 
and  with  as  much  facility  as  the  eye  of  the  eagle  passes  over  the 
landscape,  surveyed  the  whole  field  of  controversy,  saw  in  what 
way  truth  might  be  most  successfully  defended,  and  how  error 
must  be  approached ;  and  who,  without  ever  stopping,  ever  hesitat- 
ing, by  a  rapid  and  manly  march  led  the  listening  judge  and  the 
fascinated  juror,  step  by  step,  through  a  delightsome  region,  bright- 
ening as  he  advanced,  till  his  argument  rose  to  demonstration,  and 
eloquence  was  rendered  useless  by  conviction ;  whose  talents  were 
employed  on  the  side  of  righteousness;  whose  voice,  whether  in 
the  council  chamber  or  at  the  bar  of  justice,  was  virtue's  consola- 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


107 


tion ;  at  whose  approach  oppressed  humanity  felt  a  secret  rapture, 
and  the  heart  of  injured  innocence  leaped  for  joy. 

Where  Hamilton  "was,  in  whatever  sphere  he  moved,  the  friend- 
less had  a  friend,  the  fatherless  a  father,  and  the  poor  man,  though 
unable  to  reward  his  kindness,  found  an  advocate.  It  was  when 
the  rich  oppressed  the  poor,  when  the  powerful  menaced  the 
defenceless,  when  truth  was  disregarded,  or  the  eternal  principles 
of  justice  violated,  —  it  was  on  these  occasions  that  he  exerted  all 
his  strength,  —  it  Was  on  these  occasions  that  he  sometimes  soared 
so  high  and  shone  with  a  radiance  so  transcendent,  I  had  almost 
said,  so  "  heavenly,  as  filled  those  around  him  with  awe,  and  gave 
to  him  the  force  and  authority  of  a  prophet." 

The  Patriot,  whose"  integrity  baffled  the  scrutiny  of  inru.iisition ; 
whose  manly  virtue  never  shaped  itself  to  circumstances ;  who, 
always  great,  always  himself,  stood  amidst  the  varying  tides  of 
party,  firm  like  the  rock  which,  far  from  land,  lifts  its  majestic  top 
above  the  waves,  and  remains  unshaken  by  the  storms  which 
agitate  the  oC^an. 

The  Friend  who  knew  no  guile,  whose  bosom  was  transparent  and 
deep ;  in  the  bottom  of  whose  heart  was  rooted  every  tender  and 
sympathetic  virtue  ;  whose  various  worth  opposing  parties  acknowl- 
edged while  alive,  and  on  whose  tomb  they  unite,  with  equal  sym- 
pathy and  grief,  to  heap  their,  honors. 

I  know  he  had  his  failings.  I  see,  on  the  picture  of  his  life,  — 
a  picture  rendered  awful  by  greatness,  and  luminous  by  virtue,  — 
some  dark  shades.  On  these  let  the  tear  that  pities  human  weak- 
ness fall ;  on  these  let  the  veil  which  covers  human  frailty  rest. 
As  a  hero,  as  a  statesman,  as  a  patriot,  he  lived  nobly ;  —  and 
would  to  God  I  could  add,  he  nobly  fell.  Unwilling  to  admit  his 
error  in  this  respect,  I  go  back  to  the  period  of  discussion.  I  see 
him  resisting  the  threatened  interview.  I  imagine  myself  present 
in  his  chamber.  Various  reasons,  for  a  time,  seem  to  hold  his 
determination  in  arrest.  Various  and  moving  objects  pass  before 
him,  and  speak  a  dissuasive  language.  His  country,  which  may 
need  his  counsels  to  guide,  and  his  arm  to  defend,  utters  her  veto. 
The  partner  of  his  youth,  already  covered  with  weeds,  and  whose 


108  SPECIMENS  OF 

tears  flow  down  into  her  bosom,  intercedes !  His  babes,  stretching 
out  their  little  hands  and  pointing  to  a  weeping  mother,  with  lisp- 
ing eloquence,  but  eloquence  which  reaches  a  parent's  heart,  cry 
out,  "  Stay,  stay,  dear  papa,  and  live  for  us  !  "  In  the  mean  time, 
the  spectre  of  a  fallen  son,  pale  and  ghastly,  approaches,  opens  his 
bleeding  bosom,  and,  as  the  harbinger  of  death,  points  to  the  yawn- 
ing tomb,  and  warns  a  hesitating  father  of  the  issue !  He  pauses, 
reviews  these  sad  objects,  and  reasons  on  the  subject.  I  admire  his 
magnanimity,  I  approve  his  reasoning,-  and  I  wait  to  hear  him 
reject,  with  indignation,  the  murderous  proposition,  and  to  see  him 
spurn  from  his  presence  the  presumptuous  bearer  of  it.  But  I 
wait  in  vain.  It  was  a  moment  in  which  his  great  wisdom  forsook 
him  ;  a  moment  in  which  Hamilton  was  not  himself.  He  yielded 
to  the  force  of  an  imperious  custom  ;  and,  yielding,  he  sacrificed  a 
life  in  which  all  had  an  interest,  and  he  is  lost,  —  lost  to  his  coun- 
try, lost  to  his  family,  lost  to  us  ! 

Would  to  God  I  might  be  permitted  to  approach  for  once  the 
late  scene  of  death !  Would  to  God  I  could  there,,  assemble,  on 
the  one  side,  the  disconsolate  mother,  with  her  seven  fatherless 
children,  and  on  the  other  those  who  administer  the  justice  of  my 
country.  Could  I  do  this,  I  would  point  them  to  these  sad  objects. 
I  would  entreat  them,  by  the  agonies  of  bereaved  fondness,  to  listen 
to  the  widow's  heartfelt  groans,  to  mark  the  orphan's  sighs  and 
tears.  And,  having  done  this,  I  would  uncover  the  breathless 
corpse  of  Hamilton,  —  I  would  lift  from  his  gaping  wound  his 
bloody  mantle,  —  I  would  hold  it  up  to  heaven  before  them,  and  I 
would  ask,  in  the  name  of  God  I  would  ask,  whether,  at  the  sight 
of  it,  they  felt  no  compunction  ! 

Ah !  ye  tragic  shores  of  Hoboken,  crimsoned  with  the  richest 
blood,  I  tremble  at  the  crimes  ye  record  against  us  —  the  annual 
register  of  murders  which  you  keep  and  send  up  to  God !  Place 
of  inhuman  cruelty !  beyond  the  limits  of  reason,  of  duty  and  of 
religion,  where  man  assumes  a  more  barbarous  nature,  and  ceases 
to  be  man.  What  poignant,  lingering  sorrows  do  thy  lawless 
combats  occasion  to  surviving  relatives !  Ye  who  have  hearts  of 
pity,  —  ye  who  have  experienced  the  anguish  of  dissolving  friend- 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


109 


ship,  —  who  have  wept,  and  still  weep,  over  the  mouldering  ruins 
of  departed  kindred,  ye  can  enter  into  this  reflection. 

0  thou  disconsolate  widow !  robbed,  so  cruelly  robbed,  and  in 
so  short  a  time,  both  of  a  husband  and  a  son,  what  must  be  the 
plenitude  of  thy  sufferings!  Could  we  approach  thee,  gladly 
would  we  drop  the  tear  of  sympathy,  and  pour  into  thy  bleeding 
bosom  the  balm  of  consolation.  But  how  can  we  comfort  her 
whom  God  hath  not  comforted  ?  To  His  throne  let  us  lift  up  our 
voice  and  weep ! 

A  short  time  since,  and  he  who  is  the  occasion  of  our  sorrows 
was  the  ornament  of  his  country.  He  stood  on  an  eminence,  and 
glory  covered  him.  From  that  eminence  he  has  fallen,  —  sud- 
denly, forever  fallen.  His  intercourse  with  the  living  world  has 
now  ended ;  and  those  who  would  hereafter  find  him  must  seek 
him  in  the  grave.  There,  cold  and  lifeless,  is  the  heart  which  just 
now  was  the  seat  of  friendship.  There,  dim  and  sightless,  is  the 
eye  whose  radiant  and  enlivening  orb  beamed  with  intelligence ; 
and  there,  closed  forever,  are  those  lips,  on  whose  persuasive 
accents  we  have  so  often  and  so  lately  hung  with  transport ! 
From  the  darkness  which  rests  upon  his  tomb  there  proceeds, 
methinks,  a  light  in  which  it  is  clearly  seen  that  those  gaudy 
objects  which  men  pursue  are  only  phantoms.  In  this  light  how 
dimly  shines  the  splendor  of  victory,  —  how  humble  appears  the 
majesty  of  grandeur  !  The  bubble,  which  seemed  to  have  so  much 
solidity,  has  burst,  and  we  again  see  that  all  below  the  sun  is 
vanity ! 

True,  the  funeral  eulogy  has  been  pronounced,  —  the  sad  and 
solemn  procession  has  moved,  —  the  badge  of  mourning  has  already 
been  decreed,  and  presently  the  sculptured  marble  will  lift  up  its 
front,  proud  to  perpetuate  the  name  of  Hamilton,  and  rehearse  to 
the  passing  traveller  his  virtues.  Just  tributes  of  respect !  And 
to  the  living  useful.  But  to  him,  mouldering  in  his  narrow 
and  humble  habitation,  what  are  they  ?  How  vain  !  —  how  una- 
vailing ! 

Approach,  and  behold,  while  I  lift  from  his  sepulchre  its  cover- 
ing !    Ye  admirers  of  his  greatness,  ye  'emulous  of  his  talents  and 
10 


110  SPECIMENS  OF 

his  fame,  approach,  and  behold  him  now.    How  pale  !  how  silent 
No  martial  bands  admire  the  adroitness  of  his  movements ;  no  fas-  « 
cinated  throng  weep,  and  melt,  and  tremble,  at  his  eloquence! 
Amazing  change  !    A  shroud  !  a  coffin  !  a  narrow,  subterraneous 
cabin !    This  is  all  that  now  remains  of  Hamilton ! 


INTELLIGENCE  A  NATIONAL  SAFEGUARD.  —  L.  Woodbury. 

Our  history  constantly  points  her  finger  to  a  most  efficient 
resource,  and  indeed  to  the  only  elixir  to  secure  a  long  life  to  any 
popular  government,  in  increased  attention  to  useful  education  and 
sound  morals,  with  the  wise  description  of  equal  measures  and 
just  practices  they  inculcate  on  every  leaf  of  recorded  time. 
Before  their  alliance,  the  spirit  of  misrule  will  always,  in  time, 
stand  rebuked,  and  those  who  worship  at  the  shrine  of  unhallowed 
ambition  must  quail. 

Storms  in  the  political  atmosphere  may  occasionally  happen  by 
the  encroachments  of  usurpers,  the  corruption  or  intrigues  of  dem- 
agogues, or  in  the  expiring  agonies  of  faction,  or  by  the  sudden 
fury  of  popular  phrensy ;  but,  with  the  restraints  and  salutary 
influences  of  the  allies  before  described,  these  storms  will  purify  as 
healthfully  as  they  often  do  in  the  physical  world,  and  cause  the 
tree  of  liberty,  instead  of  falling,  to  strike  its  roots  deeper. 

In  this  struggle,  the  enlightened  and  moral  possess  also  a  power, 
auxiliary  and  strong,  in  the  spirit  of  the  age,  which  is  not  only 
with  them,  but  onward,  in  everything  to  ameliorate  or  improve. 

When  the  struggle  assumes  the  form  of  a  contest  with  power,  in 
all  its  subtlety,  or  with  undermining  and  corrupting  wealth,  as  it 
sometimes  may,  rather  than  with  turbulence,  sedition,  or  open 
aggression  by  the  needy  and  desperate,  it  will  be  indispensable  to 
employ  still  greater  diligence ;  to  cherish  earnestness  of  purpose, 
resoluteness  in  conduct ;  to  apply  hard  and  constant  blows  to  real 
abuses,  and  encourage  not  only  bold,  free  and  original  thinking, 
but  determined  action. 

^n  such  a  cause,  our  fathers  were  men  whose  hearts  were  not 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


Ill 


accustomed  to  fail  them,  through  fear,  however  formidable  the 
obstacles.  We  are  not,  it  is  trusted,  such  degenerate  descendants 
as  to  prove  recreant,  and  fail  to  defend  with  gallantry  and  firm- 
ness as  unflinching  all  which  we  have  either  derived  from  them 
or  since  added  to  the  rich  inheritance. 

At  such  a  crisis,  therefore,  and  in  such  a  cause,  yielding  to 
neither  consternation  nor  despair,  may  we  not  all  profit  by  the 
vehement  exhortations  of  Cicero  to  Atticus  :  "  If  you  are  asleep, 
awake ;  if  you  are  standing,  move ;  if  you  are  moving,  run ;  if 
you  are  running,  fly  !  " 

All  these  considerations  warn  us,  —  the  gravestones  of  almost 
every  former  republic  warn  us,  —  that  a  high  standard  of  moral 
rectitude,  as  well  as  of  intelligence,  is  quite  as  indispensable  to  com- 
munities, in  their  public  doings,  as  to  individuals,  if  they  would 
escape  from  either  degeneracy  or  disgrace. 


PEACE  AND  NATIONAL  HONOR.  —  G.  Morris. 

My  object  is  peace.  I  will  not  pretend,  like  my  honorable  col- 
league, to  describe  to  you  the  waste,  the  ravages,  and  the  horrors 
of  war.  I  have  not  the  same  harmonious  periods,  nor  the  same 
musical  tones;  neither  shall  I  boast  of  Christian  charity,  nor 
attempt  to  display  that  ingenuous  glow  of  benevolence  so  decorous 
to  the  cheek  of  youth,  which  gave  a  vivid  tint  to  every  sentence  he 
uttered,  and  was,  if  possible,  as  impressive  even  as  his  eloquence. 
But  though  we  possess  not  the  same  pomp  of  words,  our  hearts  are 
not  insensible  to  the  woes  of  humanity.  We  can  feel  for  the 
misery  of  plundered  towns,  the  conflagration  of  defenceless  villages, 
and  the  devastation  of  cultured  fields.  Turning  from  these  fea- 
tures of  general  distress,  we  can  enter  the  abodes  of  private  afflic- 
tion, and  behold  the  widow  weeping  as  she  traces,  in  the  pledges 
of  connubial  affection,  the  resemblance  of  him  whom  she  lias  lost 
forever.  We  see  the  aged  matron  bending  over  the  ashes  of  her 
son.  He  was  her  darling,  for  he  was  generous  and  brave,  and, 
therefore,  his  spirit  led  him  to  the  field  in  defence  of  his  country. 


112 


SPECIMENS  OF 


Hard,  hard  indeed  must  be  that  heart  which  can  be  insensible  to 
scenes  like  these,  and  bold  the  man  who  dares  present  to  the 
Almighty  Father  a  conscience  crimsoned  with  the  blood  of  his 
children. 

Yes,  sir,  we  wish  for  peace ;  but  how  is  that  blessing  to  be  pre- 
served ?  In  my  opinion,  there  is  nothing  worth  fighting  for  but 
national  honor  ;  for  in  the  national  honor  is  involved  the  national 
independence.  I  know  that  prudence  may  force  a  wise  government 
to  conceal  the  sense  of  indignity ;  but  the  insult  should  be  engraven 
on  tablets  of  brass  with  a  pencil  of  steel.  And  when  that  time 
and  change,  which  happen  to  all,  shall  bring  forward  the  favorable 
moment,  then  let  the  avenging  arm  strike  home.  It  is  by  avow- 
ing and  maintaining  this  stern  principle  of  honor  that  peace  can  be 
preserved. 


THE  TRUE  REFORMERS,  —  H  Greeley. 

To  the  rightly  constituted  mind,  to  the  truly  developed  man, 
there  always  is,  there  always  must  be,  opportunity  —  opportunity 
to  be  and  to  learn,  nobly  to  do  and  to  endure ;  and  what  matter 
whether  with  pomp  and  eclat,  with  sound  of  trumpets  and  shout 
of  applauding  thousands,  or  in  silence  and  seclusion,  beneath  the 
calm,  discerning  gaze  of  Heaven?  No  station  can  be  humble  on 
which  that  gaze  is  approvingly  bent;  no  work  can  be  ignoble 
which  is  performed  uprightly,  and  not  impelled  by  sordid  and  self- 
ish aims. 

Not  from  among  the  children  of  monarchs,  ushered  into  being 
with  boom  of  cannon  and  shouts  of  revelling  millions,  but  from 
amid  the  sons  of  obscurity  and  toil,  cradled  in  peril  and  ignominy, 
from  the  bulrushes  and  the  manger,  come  forth  the  benefactors  and 
saviors  of  mankind.  So  when  all  the  babble  and  glare  of  our  age 
shall  have  passed  into  a  fitting  oblivion,  when  those  who  have 
enjoyed' rare  opportunities  and  swayed  vast  empires,  and  been  borne 
through  life  on  the  shoulders  of  shouting  multitudes,  shall  have 
been  laid  at  last  to  rest  in  golden  coffins,  to  moulder  forgotten,  the 
stately  marble  their  only  monuments,  it  will  be  found  that  some 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


113 


humble  youth,  who  neither  inherited  nor  found,  but  hewed  out  his 
opportunities,  has  uttered  the  thought  which  shall  render  the  age 
memorable,  by  extending  the  means  of  enlightenment  and  blessing 
to  our  race.  The  great  struggle  for  human  progress  and  elevation 
proceeds  noiselessly,  —  often  unnoted,  often  checked  and  apparently 
baffled,  amid  the  clamorous  and  debasing  strifes  impelled  by  greedy 
selfishness  and  low  ambition.  In  that  struggle,  maintained  by  the 
wise  and  good  of  all  parties,  all  creeds,  all  climes,  bear  ye  the  part 
of  men.  Heed  the  lofty  summons,  and,  with  souls  serene  and  con- 
stant, prepare  to  tread  boldly  in  the  path  of  highest  duty.  So 
shall  life  be  to  you  truly  exalted  and  heroic ;  so  shall  death  be  a 
transition  neither  sought  nor  dreaded;  so  shall  your  memory, 
though  cherished  at  first  but  by  a  few  humble,  loving  hearts,  linger 
long  and  gratefully  in  human  remembrance,  a  watchword  to  the 
truthful  and  an  incitement  to  generous  endeavor,  freshened  by  the 
proud  tears  of  admiring  affection,  and  fragrant  with  the  odors  of 
heaven ! 


OiST  THE  DEATH  OF  HON.  WILLIAM  PINCKNEY.  — /.  Sparks. 

No  object  is  so  insignificant,  no  event  so  trivial,  as  not  to  carry 
with  it  a  moral  and  religious  influence.  The  trees  that  spring  out 
of  the  earth  are  moralists.  They  are  emblems  of  the  life  of  man. 
They  grow  up ;  they  put  on  the  garments  of  freshness  and  beauty. 
Yet  these  continue  but  for  a  time ;  decay  seizes  upon  the  root  and 
the  trunk,  and  they  gradually  go  back  to  their  original  elements. 
The  blossoms  that  open  to  the  rising  sun,  but  are  closed  at  night, 
never  to  open  again,  are  moralists.  The  seasons  are  moralists, 
teaching  the  lessons  of  wisdom,  manifesting  the  wonders  of  the 
Creator,  and  calling  on  man  to  reflect  on  his  condition  and  destiny. 
History  is  a  perpetual  moralist,  disclosing  the  annals  of  past  ages, 
showing  the  impotency  of  pride  and  greatness,  the  weakness  of 
human  power,  the  folly  of  human  wisdom.  The  daily  occurrences 
in  society  are  moralists.  The  success  or  failure  of  enterprise,  the 
prosperity  of  the  bad,  the  adversity  of  the  good,  the  disappointed 
hopes  of  the  sanguine  and  active,  the  sufferings  of  the  virtuous, 
10* 


114 


SPECIMENS  OY 


the  caprices  of  fortune  in  every  condition  of  life,  —  all  these  are 
fraught  with  moral  instructions,  and,  if  properly  applied,  will  fix 
the  power  of  religion  in  the  heart. 

But  there  is  a  greater  moralist  still,  and  that  is  Death.  Here 
is  a  teacher  who  speaks  in  a  voice  which  none  can  mistake ;  who 
comes  with  a  power  which  none  can  resist.  Since  we  last  assem- 
bled in  this  place  as  the  humble  and  united  worshippers  of  God, 
this  stern  messenger,  this  mysterious  agent  of  Omnipotence,  has 
come  among  our  numbers,  and  laid  his  withering  hand  on  one 
whom  we  have  been  taught  to  honor  and  respect,  whose  fame  was 
a  nation's  boast,  whose  genius  was  a  brilliant  spark  from  the  ethe- 
real fire,  whose  attainments  were  equalled  only  by  the  grasp  of  his 
intellect,  the  profoundness  of  his  judgment,  the  exuberance  of  his 
fancy,  the  magic  of  his  eloquence. 

It  is  not  my  present  purpose  to  ask  your  attention  to  any  pic- 
ture drawn  in  the  studied  phrase  of  eulogy.  I  aim  not  to  describe 
the  commanding  powers  and  the  eminent  qualities  which  conducted 
the  deceased  to  the  superiority  he  held,  and  which  were  at  once 
the  admiration  and  the  pride  of  his  countrymen.  I  shall  not 
attempt  to  analyze  his  capacious  mind,  nor  to  set  forth  the  rich- 
ness and  variety  of  its  treasures.  The  trophies  of  his  genius  are  a 
sufficient  testimony  of  these,  and  constitute  a  monument  to  his 
memory,  which  will  stand  firm  and  conspicuous  amidst  the  faded 
recollections  of  future  ages.  The  present  is  not  the  time  to  recount 
the  sources  or  the  memorials  of  his  greatness.  He  is  gone.  The 
noblest  of  Heaven's  gifts  could  not  shield  even  him  from  the  arrows 
of  the  destroyer.  And  this  behest  of  the  Most  High  is  a  warning 
summons  to  us  all.  When  death  comes  into  our  doors,  we  ought 
to  feel  that  he  is  near.  When  his  irreversible  sentence  falls  on 
the  great  and  the  renowned,  when  he  severs  the  strongest  bonds 
which  can  bind  mortals  to  earth,  we  ought  to  feel  that  our  hold  on 
life  is  slight,  that  the  thread  of  existence  is  slender,  that  we  walk 
amidst  perils,  where  the  next  wave  of  the  agitated  sea  of  life  may 
baffle  all  our  struggles,  and  carry  us  back  into  the  dark  bosom  of 
the  deep. 

When  we  look  at  the  monuments  of  human  greatness,  and  the 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


115 


powers  of  human  intellect,  all  that  genius  has  invented,  or  skill 
executed,  or  wisdom  matured,  or  industry  achieved,  or  labor  accom- 
plished, —  when  we  trace  these  through  the  successive  gradations 
of  human  advancement,  what  are  they  ?  On  these  are  founded 
the  pride,  glory,  dignity  of  man.  And  what  are  they  ?  Com- 
pared with  the  most  insignificant  work  of  God,  they  are  nothing, 
less  than  nothing.  The  mightiest  works  of  man  are  daily  and 
hourly  becoming  extinct.  The  boasted  theories  of  religion,  morals, 
government,  which  took  the  wisdom,  the  ingenuity  of  ages,  to 
invent,  have  been  proved  to  be  shadowy  theories  only.  Genius 
has  wasted  itself  in  vain ;  the  visions  it  has  raised  have  vanished 
at  the  touch  of  truth.  Nothing  is  left  but  the  melancholy  cer- 
tainty that  all  things  human  are  imperfect,  and  must  fail  and 
decay.  And  man  himself,  whose  works  are  so  fragile,  where  is  he? 
The  history  of  his  works  is  the  history  of  himself.  He  existed ; 
—  he  is  gone  ! 

The  nature  of  human  life  cannot  be  more  forcibly  described  than 
in  the  beautiful  language  of  eastern  poetry,  which  immediately 
precedes  the  text :  "  Man,  that  is  born  of  woman,  is  of  few  days, 
and  full  of  trouble.  He  cometh  forth  like  a  flower,  and  is  cut 
down ;  he  fleeth  as  a  shadow,  and  continueth  not.  There  is  hope 
of  a  tree,  if  it  be  cut  down,  that  it  will  sprout  again,  and  that  the 
tender  branch  thereof  will  not  cease.  Though  the  root  thereof 
wax  old  in  the  earth,  and  the  stock  thereof  die  in  the  ground ; 
yet,  through  the  scent  of  water,  it  will  bud  and  bring  forth  boughs 
like  a  plant.  But  man  wasteth  away ;  yea,  man  giveth  up  the 
ghost,  and  where  is  he  ? "  Such  are  the  striking  emblems  of 
human  life ;  such  is  the  end  of  all  that  is  mortal  in  man.  And 
what  a  question  is  here  for  us  to  reflect  upon !  "  Man  giveth  up 
the  ghost,  and  ivhere  is  he  ?  " 

Yes,  when  we  see  the  flower  of  life  fade  on  its  stalk,  and  all  its 
comeliness  depart,  and  all  its  freshness  wither ;  when  we  see  the 
bright  eye  grow  dim,  and  the  rose  on  the  cheek  lose  its  hue;  when 
we  hear  the  voice  faltering  its  last  accents,  and  see  the  energies  of 
nature  paralyzed ;  when  we  perceive  the  beams  of  intelligence  grow 
fainter  and  fainter  on  the  countenance,  and  the  last  gleam  of  life 


116  SPECIMENS  or 

extinguished  ;  when  we  deposit  all  that  is  mortal  of  a  fellow-being 
in  the  dark,  cold  chamber  of  the  grave,  and  drop  a  pitying  tear  at 
a  spectacle  so  humiliating,  so  mournful,  —  then  let  us  put  the  sol- 
emn question  to  our  souls,  Where  is  he  ?  His  body  is  concealed 
in  the  earth  ;  but  where  is  the  spirit  ?  Where  is  the  intellect  that 
could  look  through  the  works  of  God,  and  catch  inspiration  from 
the  divinity  which  animates  and  pervades  the  whole  ?  Where  are 
the  powers  that  could  command,  the  attractions  that  could  charm  ? 
where  the  boast  of  humanity,  wisdom,  learning,  wit,  eloquence,  the 
pride  of  skill,  the  mystery  of  art,  the  creations  of  fancy,  the  bril- 
liancy of  thought  ?  where  the  virtues  that  could  win,  and  the  gen- 
tleness that  could  soothe?  where  the  mildness  of  temper,  the 
generous  affections,  the  benevolent  feelings,  all  that  is  great  and 
good,  all  that  is  noble,  and  lovely,  and  pure,  in  the  human  charac- 
ter, —  where  are  they  ?  They  are  gone.  We  can  see  nothing  ; 
the  eye  of  faith  only  can  dimly  penetrate  the  region  to  which  they 
have  fled.  Lift  the  eye  of  faith ;  follow  the  light  of  the  gospel, 
and  let  your  delighted  vision  be  lost  in  the  glories  of  the  immortal 
world.  Behold,  there,  the  spirits  of  the  righteous  dead  rising  up 
into  newness  of  life,  gathering  brightness  and  strength,  unencum- 
bered by  the  weight  of  mortal  clay  and  mortal  sorrows,  enjoying  a 
happy  existence,  and  performing  the  holy  service  of  their  Maker. 

Let  our  reflections  on  death  have  a  weighty  and  immediate 
influence  on  our  minds  and  characters.  We  cannot  be  too  soon  or 
too  entirely  prepared  to  render  the  account  which  we  must  all 
render  to  our  Maker  and  Judge.  All  things  earthly  must  fail  us ; 
the  riches,  power,  possessions  and  gifts  of  the  world  will  vanish 
from  our  sight ;  friends  and  relatives  will  be  left  behind  ;  our  pres- 
ent support  will  be  taken  away ;  our  strength  will  become  weak- 
ness, and  the  earth  itself,  and  all  its  pomps,  and  honors,  and  attrac- 
tions, will  disappear.  Why  have  we  been  spared  even  till  this 
time  ?  We  know  not  why,  nor  yet  can  we  say  that  a  moment  is 
our  own.  The  summons  for  our  departure  may  now  be  recorded 
in  the  book  of  Heaven.  The  angel  may  now  be  on  his  way  to 
execute  his  solemn  commission.    Death  may  already  have  marked 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


117 


us  for  his  victims.  But,  whether  sooner  or  later,  the  event  will 
be  equally  awful,  and  demand  the  same  preparation. 

One,  only,  will  then  be  our  rock  and  our  safety.  The  kind 
Parent,  who  has  upheld  us  all  our  days,  will  remain  our  unfailing 
support.  With  him  is  no  change ;  he  is  unmoved  from  age  to  age ; 
his  mercy,  as  well  as  his  being,  endures  forever ;  and,  if  we  rely 
on  him,  and  live  in  obedience  to  his  laws,  all  tears  shall  be  wiped 
from  our  eyes,  and  all  sorrow  banished  from  our  hearts.  If  we 
are  rebels  to  his  cause,  slaves  to  vice,  and  followers  of  evil,  we 
must  expect  the  displeasure  of  a  holy  God  —  the  just  punishment 
of  our  folly  and  wickedness ;  for  a  righteous  retribution  will  be 
awarded  to  the  evil  as  well  as  to  the  good. 

Let  it  be  the  highest,  the  holiest,  the  unceasing  concern  of  each 
one  of  us,  to  live  the  life,  that  we  may  be  prepared  to  die  the 
death,  of  the  righteous ;  that,  when  they  who  come  after  us  shall 
ask,  Where  is  he  ?  unnumbered  voices  shall  be  raised  to  testify, 
that,  although  his  mortal  remains  are  mouldering  in  the  cold  earth, 
his  memory  is  embalmed  in  the  cherished  recollections  of  many  a 
friend  who  knew  and  loved  him ;  and  all  shall  say,  with  tokens  of 
joy  and  confident  belief,  If  God  be  just,  and  piety  be  rewarded,  his 
pure  spirit  is  now  at  rest  in  the  regions  of  the  blessed. 


THE  DISSOLUTION  OF  THE  UNION.  —  A.  Stewart. 

The  gentleman  from  South  Carolina  has  painted,  in  the  most 
glowing  colors  and  fascinating  forms,  the  glorious  advantages  to 
the  South  of  a  dissolution  of  this  Union.  But  is  there  not  another 
side  to  this  picture  ?  —  and  to  this  I  beg  the  gentlemen  to  turn 
their  calm  and  dispassionate  attention.  Before  they  take  this 
fearful  plunge,  let  them  look  over  the  precipice  on  which  they 
stand  into  the  yawning  gulf  beneath.  On  the  other  side  of  this 
picture  is  written,  in  flaming  capitals,  Treason,  Bebellion,  Civil 
War,  with  all  its  tearful  consequences.  Let  it  be  remembered  that 
no  state  can  go  out  of  this  Union  until  it  has  conquered  all  the 
rest     When  one  state  is  gone,  no  two  remain  united.    We  have 


118 


SPECIMENS  OF 


heard  of  the  benefits  of  destroying  this  Union ;  but  what  will  be 
its  cost  to  those  who  may  attempt  it  ?  From  imaginary  ills  they 
fly  to  "  others  that  they  know  not  of." 

They  now  complain  of  taxation  !  But  what  will  be  the  taxation 
necessary  to  raise  and  sustain  armies  and  navies  to  contend  against 
this  government?  —  a  government  which  now,  with  fond  and 
parental  affection,  guards  and  protects  the  South.  But  taxation 
would  be  the  smallest  item  in  the  frightful  catalogue  of  their 
calamities.  There  is  still  another  leaf  in  this  book,  to  which  gen- 
tlemen should  look.  And  can  they  behold  it  with  indifference  ? 
It  is  the  page  on  which  posterity  will  write  the  epitaph  of  the 
authors  of  the  destruction  of  this  happy  and  glorious  Union ;  of 
those  who  should  involve  us  in  all  the  horrors  of  civil  war ;  who 
should  arm  father  against  son,  and  brother  against  brother ;  who 
should  destroy  this  bright  and  glorious  example  —  the  only  free 
government  on  earth. 

How  deep  and  how  loud  would  be  their  denunciations,  how  bitter 
and  how  blasting  would  be  the  curses,  with  which  posterity  would 
brand  the  memories  of  those  men  !  And  will  not  their  sentence  be 
just  ?  Where  will  they  look  for  extenuation  or  excuse  ?  Taxa- 
tion !  —  it  is  imaginary,  not  real.  All  contributions  here  are 
voluntary,  not  compulsory.  No  people  under  heaven  are  half  so 
lightly  taxed,  or  half  so  highly  blessed.  In  other  countries,  the 
people  are  taxed  twenty  times  the  amount,  to  support  despots ; 
imposed,  not  by  themselves,  but  by  arbitrary  power.  Compared 
with  this  country,  in  England  taxation  is  as  eighteen  to  one ;  yet 
they  submit,  and  we  rebel.  Will  not  the  people  of  the  South  look 
at  these  facts,  and  pause  before  they  do  the  fatal  deed  that  must 
seal  forever  their  own  destruction  ?  In  this  Union  the  gentleman 
from  South  Carolina  has  everything  to  hope ;  —  his  name  may  go 
down  to  posterity  among  the  most  distinguished  men  of  the  age ;  his 
talents  may  adorn  its  highest  offices,  to  which  he  has  a  just  right  to 
aspire ;  and,  much  as  I  may  differ  with  that  gentleman,  both  as  to 
men  and  measures,  yet  such  is  my  opinion  of  his  talents  and  his 
worth,  that  I  would  rejoice  to  see  him  at  this  moment  filling  the 
highest  of  the  executive  departments  of  this  government,  or  the 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


119 


highest  of  its  diplomatic  stations.  That  gentleman  may  be  carried 
away  by  momentary  excitement ;  still  I  cannot  doubt  his  attach- 
ment to  this  Union,  which  I  trust  he  will  never  sacrifice  to  imag- 
inary evils.  The  blessings  of  this  government,  and  the  value  of 
this  Union,  I  have  never  heard  so  forcibly  urged,  or  so  eloquently 
portrayed,  as  by  the  gentleman  from  South  Carolina  himself ;  and 
I  cannot,  in  conclusion,  better  express  my  own  feelings  than  by 
repeating  the  very  words  uttered  by  that  gentleman  in  concluding 
an  able  and  eloquent  speech  on  another  occasion,  when  he  said, 
"  The  liberty  of  this  country  is  a  sacred  depository  —  a  vestal  fire, 
which  Providence  has  committed  to  our  hands  for  the  general  ben- 
efit of  mankind.  It  is  the  world's  last  hope  :  extinguish  it,  and 
the  earth  will  be  covered  with  eternal  darkness ;  but  once  '  put  out 
that  light/I  know  not  where  is  that  Promethean  heat  that  shall 
that  light  relume.'  " 

I  appeal  to  the  gentleman ;  I  ask  him,  is  he  prepared  to  destroy 
that  "  sacred  depository,"  the  Union  and  liberties  of  his  country  ? 
Is  he  prepared  to  extinguish,  in  fraternal  blood,  that  "  vestal  fire 
committed  to  his  hands  by  Providence,  for  the  benefit  of  man- 
kind ?  "  Is  he  prepared  to  destroy  "  the  world's  last  hope  ; "  to 
put  out  and  extinguish  forever  that  great  and  glorious  light  of 
liberty  and  union  now  blazing  up  to  the  heavens,  illumining  the 
path  and  cheering  the  onward  march  of  the  friends  of  freedom 
throughout  the  world,  and  thus  to  cover  the  earth  with  eternal 
darkness  ?    Is  he  prepared  for  this  ?    I  pause  for  a  reply. 


MADISON  AND  THE  CONSTITUTION.  —  /.  Q.  Adams. 

Mr.  Madison  was  associated  with  his  friend  Jefferson  in  the 
institution  of  the  University  of  Virginia,  and  after  his  decease  was 
placed  at  its  head,  under  the  modest  and  unassuming  title  of  rec- 
tor. He  was  also  the  president  of  an  agricultural  society  in  the 
county  of  his  residence,  and  in  that  capacity  delivered  an  address 
which  the  practical  farmer  and  the  classical  scholar  may  read  with 
equal  profit  and  delight. 


120 


SPECIMENS  OF 


In  the  midst  of  these  occupations  the  declining  days  of  the  phi- 
losopher, the  statesman,  and  the  patriot,  were  past,  until  the  21st 
day  of  June  last,  the  anniversary  of  the  day  on  which  the  ratifica- 
tion of  the  convention  of  Virginia  in  1788  had  afiixed  the  seal  of 
James  Madison  as  the  father  of  the  constitution  of  the  United 
States,  when  his  earthly  part  sunk  without  a  struggle  into  the 
grave,  and  a  spirit  bright  as  the  seraphim  that  surround  the  throne 
of  Omnipotence  ascended  to  the  bosom  of  his  God. 

This  constitution  is  the  great  result  of  the  North  American 
Revolution.  This  is  the  giant  stride  in  the  improvement  of  the 
condition  of  the  human  race,  consummated  in  a  period  of  less  than 
one  hundred  years.  Of  the  signers  of  the  address  to  George  the 
Third  in  the  Congress  of  1774,  of  the  signers  of  the  Declaration 
of  Independence  in  1776,  of  the  signers  of  the  articles  of  confeder- 
ation in  1781,  and  of  the  signers  of  the  federal  and  national  con- 
stitution of  government  under  which  we  live,  with  enjoyments 
never  before  allotted  to  man,  —  not  one  remains  in  the  land  of  the 
living.  The  last  survivor  of  them  all  was  he  to  honor  whose  mem- 
ory we  are  here  assembled  at  once  with  mourning  and  with  joy. 
We  reverse  the  order  of  sentiment  and  reflection  of  the  ancient 
Persian  king,  —  we  look  back  on  the  century  gone  by  —  we  look 
around  with  anxious  and  eager  eye  for  one  of  that  illustrious  host 
of  patriots  and  heroes  under  whose  guidance  the  Revolution  of 
American  Independence  was  begun  and  continued  and  completed. 
We  look  around  in  vain.  To  them  this  crowded  theatre,  full  of 
human  life,  in  all  its  stages  of  existence,  full  of  the  glowing  exul- 
tation of  youth,  of  the  steady  maturity  of  manhood,  the  sparkling 
eyes  of  beauty,  and  the  gray  hairs  of  reverend  age,  —  all  this  to 
them  is  as  the  solitude  of  the  sepulchre.  We  think  of  this,  and 
say,  How  short  is  human  life !  But  then,  then,  we  turn  back  our 
thoughts  again,  to  the  scene,  over  which  the  falling  curtain  has  but 
now  closed  upon  the  drama  of  the  day.  From  the  saddening 
thought  that  they  are  no  more,  we  call  for  comfort  upon  the  mem- 
ory of  what  they  were,  and  our  hearts  leap  for  joy  that  they  were 
our  fathers.  We  see  them,  true  and  faithful  subjects  of  their 
sovereign,  first  meeting  with  firm  but  respectful  remonstrance  the 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


121 


approach  of  usurpation  upon  their  rights.  We  see  them,  fearless 
in  their  fortitude,  and  confident  in  the  righteousness  of  their  cause., 
bid  defiance  to  the  arm  of  power,  and  declare  themselves  inde- 
pendent states.  We  see  them,  waging  for  seven  years  a  war  of 
desolation  and  of  glory,  in  most  unequal  contest  with  their  own 
unnatural  step-mother,  the  mistress  of  the  seas,  till  under  the  sign 
manual  of  their  king  their  independence  was  acknowledged ;  and, 
last  and  best  of  all,  we  see  them  toiling  in  war  and  in  peace  to 
form  and  perpetuate  a  union,  under  forms  of  government  intri- 
cately but  skilfully  adjusted  so  as  to  secure  to  themselves  and  their 
posterity  the  priceless  blessings  of  inseparable  liberty  and  law. 

Their  days  on  earth  are  ended,  and  yet  their  century  has  not 
passed  away.  Their  portion  of  the  blessings  which  they  thus 
labored  to  secure,  they  have  enjoyed,  and  transmitted  to  us  their 
posterity.  We  enjoy  them  as  an  inheritance,  —  won,  not  by  our 
toils  ;  watered,  not  with  our  tears ;  saddened,  not  by  the  shedding 
of  any  blood  of  ours.  The  gift  of  Heaven  through  their  suffer- 
ings and  their  achievements,  —  but  not  without  a  charge  of  corres- 
pondent duty  incumbent  upon  ourselves. 

And  what,  my  friends  and  fellow-citizens,  what  is  that  duty  of 
our  own  ?  Is  it  to  remonstrate  to  the  adder's  ear  of  a  king  beyond 
the  Atlantic  wave,  and  claim  from  him  the  restoration  of  violated 
rights  ?  No.  Is  it  to  sever  the  ties  of  kindred  and  of  blood  with 
the  people  from  whom  we  sprang  ?  to  cast  away  the  precious  name 
of  Britons,  and  be  no  more  the  countrymen  of  Shakspeare  and 
Milton,  of  Newton  and  Locke,  of  Chatham  and  Burke  ?  Or  moro 
and  worse,  is  it  to  meet  their  countrymen  in  the  deadly  conflict  of 
a  seven  years'  war  ?  No.  Is  it  the  last  and  greatest  of  the  duties 
fulfilled  by  them  ?  Is  it  to  lay  the  foundations  of  the  fairest  gov- 
ernment and  the  mightiest  nation  that  ever  floated  on  the  tide  of 
time  ?  No !  These  awful  and  solemn  duties  were  allotted  to 
them,  and  by  them  they  were  faithfully  performed.  What,  then, 
is  our  duty  ? 

Is  it  not  to  preserve,  to  cherish,  to  improve  the  inheritance 
which  they  have  left  us,  —  won  by  their  toils,  watered  by  their 
tears,  saddened  but  fertilized  by  their  blood  ?   Are  we  the  sons  of 


122 


SPECIMENS  OF 


worthy  sires,  and  in  the  onward  march  of  time  have  they  achieved 
in  the  career  of  human  improvement  so  much,  only  that  our  pos- 
terity and  theirs  may  blush  for  the  contrast  between  their  unexam- 
pled energies  and  our  nerveless  impotence  ?  between  their  more  than 
herculean  labors  and  our  indolent  repose  ?  No,  my  fellow-citi- 
zens, far  be  from  us,  far  be  from  you,  —  for  he  who  now  addresses 
you  has  but  a  few  short  days  before  he  shall  be  called  to  join  the 
multitudes  of  ages  past,  —  far  be  from  you  the  reproach  or  the 
suspicion  of  such  a  degrading  contrast !  You,  too,  have  the  solemn 
duty  to  perform  of  improving  the  condition  of  your  species,  by 
improving  your  own.  Not  in  the  great  and  strong  wind  of  a  rev- 
olution, which  rent  the  mountains  and  brake  in  pieces  the  rocks 
before  the  Lord,  —  for  the  Lord  is  not  in  the  wind ;  not  in  the 
earthquake  of  a  revolutionary  war,  marching  to  the  onset  between 
the  battle-field  and  the  scaffold,  —  for  the  Lord  is  not  in  the  earth- 
quake ;  not  in  the  fire  of  civil  dissension,  in  war  between  the  mem- 
bers and  the  head,  in  nullification  of  the  laws  of  the  Union  by  the 
forcible  resistance  of  one  refractory  state,  —  for  the  Lord  is  not  in 
the  fire,  and  that  fire  was  never  kindled  by  your  fathers  !  No  !  it 
is  in  the  still  small  voice  that  succeeded  the  whirlwind,  the  earth- 
quake, and  the  fire.  The  voice  that  stills  the  raging  of  the  waves 
and  the  tumults  of  the  people,  —  that  spoke  the  words  of  peace,  of 
harmony,  of  union.  And  for  that  voice,  may  you  and  your  chil- 
dren's children,  "  to  the  last  syllable  of  recorded  time,"  fix  your 
eyes  upon  the  memory,  and  listen  with  your  ears  to  the  life,  of 
James  Madison. 


HOPE.  —  G.  Spring. 

Of  all  the  prospective  emotions,  Hope  is  the  most  prolific  source 
of  happiness,  especially  to  the  youthful  mind.  In  the  bloom  of 
man's  brightening  existence,  when  everything  about  him  is  gay  and 
alluring,  and  at  that  anxious  and  perilous  moment  when  he  steps 
forward  to  the  duties  of  life,  the  impulse  which  encourages  and 
charms  him  is  found  in  his  eager  and  vivid  expectations.  This  is, 
indeed,  the  principal  source  of  every  man's  happiness.    We  do  not 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


live  for  the  present,  but  are  perpetually  carried  forward  by  a  sort 
of  natural  instinct  to  halcyon  clays  to  come.  There  are  few  pres- 
ent joys  so  absorbing,  and  few  present  trials  so  fraught  with  depres- 
sion, that  in  the  midst  of  the  former  we  are  not  looking  for  others 
yet  to  come,  and  in  the  midst  of  the  latter  wTe  are  not  anticipating 
relief.  Men  differ  in  this  respect  from  the  inferior  animals.  We 
are  not,  like  them,  environed  as  with  a  dense  wall,  beyond  which 
we  can  catch  but  a  glimmering  light.  We  have  a  prospect  brighter 
and  wider  than  theirs.  In  poverty  and  sickness,  in  disappoint- 
ment and  sorrow,  we  are  rich,  and  well,  and  happy  in  expectation ; 
and  in  the  midst  of  happiness  we  are  still  happier  in  expectation. 
In  our  dreams  we  hope.  Even  sleep,  when  it  covers  us  with  its 
heavy  pall,  does  not  so  overpower  the  mind  but  pleasant  visions 
creep  gently  beneath  its  folds,  —  visions  of  present  happiness  and 
happiness  to  come.  Enjoyment  is  nothing  without  hope.  I  have 
sometimes  thought  that  those  winged  messengers  of  celestial  mercy, 
who  are  "  ministering  spirits"  to  many  an  agitated  and  trembling 
mind,  never  fulfil  their  errands  of  love  more  opportunely  than 
when,  in  times  of  deep  depression  and  unmingled  darkness,  they 
light  up  the  glowing  anticipations  of  the  soul.  It  is  but  to  touch 
some  secret  spring  within,  to  inspire  this  glowing  bosom  with  the 
expectation  of  some  great  though  distant  good,  —  and  the  same 
circumstances  which  were  just  now  dreary  and  dark,  are  changed 
as  though  by  magic,  and  become  radiant  with  light  and  beauty. 
But  who  does  not  know  that  his  hopes  depend  on  nothing  so  much 
as  those  habits  of  enterprise  which  give  character  to  the  thoughts 
and  feelings,  and  are  always  presenting  some  delightful  as  well  as 
reasonable  object  of  expectation  ?  A  regard  to  the  present  only 
would  leave  the  common  business  of  life  well  nia;h  undone.  The 
agriculturist  ploughs,  and  sows,  and  reaps,  in  hope.  The  mariner, 
reckless  of  his  present  comfort,  exposes  his  life  amid  the  breathings 
of  the  tempest  under  the  influence  of  hope.  The  merchant  shrinks 
from  no  hardship,  omits  no  opportunity  of  exertion,  avoids  no 
hazard,  and  all  under  the  powerful  influence  of  hope.  Hope 
moves  the  tongue  of  the  orator,  fills  the  imagination  of  the  poet, 
and  lights  the  lamp  of  the  scholar.    Hope  gives  courage  to  the 


124 


SPECIMENS  OF 


heart  and  strength  to  the  arm  of  the  mighty  on  the  field  of  battle ; 
while,  through  a  thousand  valves,  hope,  with  its  airy  enchantments, 
conveys  the  impulse  to  the  complicated  machinery  of  the  deep  and 
sage  politician.  A  man  never  lays  oat  himself  in  diligent  and 
useful  exertion,  but  he  secures  or  increases  his  own  good,  or  that 
of  his  fellow-men.  And  this  is  a  prospect  which  supports  and 
cheers  him ;  and  thus,  while  his  hopes  call  forth  his  exertions, 
they,  in  their  turn,  are  themselves  fostered  by  the  exertions  which 
they  call  forth.  Hope  makes  him  active,  and  action  gives  him 
hope.  The  actual  scenes  of  human  life  never  present  themselves 
in  their  true  coloring  to  an  indolent  mind,  but  tinged  with  many  a 
dark  and  melancholy  hue.  That  complaining  spirit,  which  is 
habitually  looking  to  sources  of  darkness,  and  turning  away  from 
those  of  light  and  encouragement,  is  the  natural  growth  of  an 
unelastic,  effeminate,  slothful  mind.  That  absorbing  sentimental- 
ism,  that  morbid  sensibility,  so  often  affected  by  the  young,  and 
which,  when  not  affected,  is  the  bane  of  every  manly  and  energetic 
quality,  finds  no  welcome  in  the  bosom  of  a  man  whose  highest 
ambition  is  gratified  in  the  prospect  of  responsible  exertion.  No 
matter  what  may  be  the  aspect  of  his  condition,  no  matter  what  he 
is  called  to  do  or  to  suffer,  no  matter  how  vividly  or  how  mourn- 
ftdlj  imagination  may  paint  his  prospects,  so  long  as  he  has 
energy  of  purpose,  patiently  and  cheerfully  to  address  himself  to 
his  duty,  and  to  augment  his  courage  and  increase  his  exertions 
by  all  the  difficulties  that  beset  his  path. 


VALUE  OF  THE  UNION.— C.  T.  Russell. 

The  union  of  these  states  has  been  accomplished  by  the  contri- 
butions of  nations  and  centuries,  for  no  transient  or  insignificant 
purpose.  In  its  sublime  and  ultimate  end  it  has  a  mission  to 
humanity.  In  the  language  of  Washington,  "  The  preservation  of 
the  sacred  fire  of  liberty,  and  the  destiny  of  the  republican  model 
of  government,  are  justly  considered  as  deeply,  perhaps  as  finally, 
staked  on  the  experiment  intrusted  to  the  hands  of  the  American 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


125 


people."  Thus,  as  Madison  has  truly  said,  are  we  "responsible  for 
the  greatest  trust  ever  confided  to  a  political  society."  Ours  is 
not  the  duty  of  forming,  but  preserving.  The  fathers  were  faithful 
to  every  exigency,  by  which  God  created  it ;  we  are  responsible 
for  a  like  faithfulness  to  every  exigency,  by  which  He  would  pre- 
serve and  perpetuate  it.  To  such  fidelity  the  past  urges,  the 
future  calls,  and  the  highest  law  commands  us.  Evils  and  defects 
within  our  Union  we  may  well  and  earnestly  seek  to  remove,  by 
the  development  and  operation  of  the  principles  upon  which  it 
rests.  But  whosoever  lays  his  hand  upon  the  fabric  itself,  or 
seeks,  by  whatever  means,  or  under  whatever  pretence,  or  from 
whatever  source,  to  undermine  its  foundations,-  is  treacherous  to 
humanity,  false  to  liberty,  and,  more  than  all,  culpable  to  God. 

This  is  the  inference  of  duty.  To  its  performance  hope,  by  its 
smile,  encourages  us.  All  efforts  for  the  dissolution  of  our  Union 
will  be  as  disastrously  unsuccessful  as  they  are  singularly  criminal. 
Never  in  its  existence  has  it  been  more  earnestly  and  truly  per- 
forming its  appropriate  work  than  now.  A  people,  in  the  aggre- 
gate happy  and  blessed  as  the  sun  shines  upon,  repose  in  its  pro- 
tection. Every  rolling  tide  brings  to  its  shores  multitudes  seeking 
its  shelter.  Each  receding  wave  carries  back  to  the  people  they 
have  left  its  liberalizing  influence.  Rising  midway  of  the  conti- 
nent, and  reaching  to  either  ocean,  it  throws  over  both  its  radiant 
and  cheering  light.  Intently  the  struggling  nations  contemplate 
its  no  longer  doubtful  experiment.  Moral  and  religious  truth  are 
penetrating  every  part  of  its  vast  domain,  and  planting,  in  the 
very  footsteps  of  the  first  settlers,  the  church,  the  school,  and  the 
college.  Its  Christian  missionaries  have  girdled  the  globe  with 
their  stations,  and  in  all  of  them  heroic  men  and  women,  under  its 
protection,  with  the  religion  of  Jesus,  are  silently  diffusing  the 
principles  of  American  liberty.  Already  a  nation  in  the  far-off 
islands  of  the  Pacific  has  been  redeemed  by  them  from  barbarism, 
assumed  its  place  among  the  powers  of  the  earth,  and  the  very  last 
mails  tell  us  is  at  this  moment  seeking  admission  to  our  republic. 

Thus  meeting  its  grand  purposes,  it  will  not  fall.  Man  alone 
has  not  reared  it,  the  tabernacle  of  freedom,  and  man  alone  cannot 
11* 


126 


SPECIMENS  OP 


prostrate  it,  or  gently,  beam  by  beam,  take  it  clown.  Heaven* 
directed  in  its  formation  and  growth,  while  true  to  its  origin  it  will 
be  Heaven-protected  in  its  progress  and  maturity.  The  stars  of 
God  will  shine  down  kindly  upon  it,  and  angels  on  the  beats  of 
their  silvery  wings  will  linger  and  hover  above  it.  To-day  it  is  as 
firmly  seated  as  ever  in  the  affections  of  its  citizen?.  Guarded  by 
its  hardly-seen  power,  reposing  in  its  prosperity,  not  stopping  to 
contemplate  the  character  of  its  origin,  or  to  realize  its  transcend- 
ent purpose,  men,  for  a  moment,  may  cast  its  value,  speculate  on 
its  duration,  and  even  threaten  its  dissolution.  In  the  administra- 
tion of  its  affairs,  conflicts  of  opinion  will  exist,  sectional  interests 
will  become  excited,  and  sometimes  hostile.  The  views  of  ardent 
men  will  be  maintained  with  the  ardor  in  which  they  are  held.  A 
clear  and  fair  field  of  combat  will  be  left  to  error  and  truth.  The 
largest  freedom  of  discussion  will  be  scrupulously  preserved.  In 
the  consequent  excitement  there  may  sometimes  seem  to  be  danger 
to  the  Union  itself.  But  in  the  hour  of  peril  experience  shows, 
and  ever  will  show,  that  a  whole  people  will  rally  to  its  support, 
and  sink  its  foes  beneath  a  weight  of  odium  a  lifetime  cannot  alle- 
viate. The  rain  may  descend,  the  floods  come,  and  the  winds  blow 
and  beat  upon  it,  —  it  will  not  fall,  for  it  is  founded  upon  a  rock. 
It  rests  upon  guarantees  stronger  even  than  laws  and  compromises. 
For  it  our  interests  combine  in  overwhelming  potency ;  around  it 
cluster  the  most  glorious  associations  of  our  history ;  in  it  the  hopes 
of  humanity  are  involved ;  to  it  our  hearts  cling  with  undying 
love ;  for  it  religion,  liberty  and  conscience  plead ;  and,  beyond 
all,  upon  it,  in  its  riper  years,  as  in  its  infancy,  the  protection  of 
God  rests,  a  sheltering  cloud  for  its  fiercer  day,  a  pillar  of  fire  in 
its  darker  night. 


THE  NOBILITY  OF  LABOR.  —  0.  Dewey. 


Why,  in  the  great  scale  of  things,  is  labor  ordained  for  us  ? 
Easily,  had  it  so  pleased  the  great  Ordainer,  might  it  have  been 
dispensed  with.    The  world  itself  might  have  been  a  mighty 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


127 


machinery  for  ]  reducing  all  that  man  wants.    Houses  might  have 

risen  like  an  exhalation,  — 

"  With  the  sound 
Of  dulcet  symphonies,  and  voices  sweet, 
Built  like  a  temple." 

Gorgeous  furniture  might  have  been  placed  in  them,  and  soft 
couches  and  luxurious  banquets  spread  by  hands  unseen ;  and 
man,  clothed  with  fabrics  of  nature's  weaving,  rather  than  with 
imperial  purple,  might  have  been  sent  to  disport  himself  in  those 
Elysian  palaces. 

But  where,  then,  had  been  human  energy,  perseverance,  patience, 
virtue,  heroism  ?  Cut  olf  labor  with  one  blow  from  the  world,  and 
mankind  had  sunk  to  a  crowd  of  Asiatic  voluptuaries. 

Better  that  the  earth  be  given  to  man  as  a  dark  mass,  where- 
upon to  labor.  Better  that  rude  and  unsightly  materials  be  pro- 
vided in  the  ore-bed,  and  in  the  forest,  for  him  to  fashion  in  splen- 
dor and  beauty.  Better,  not  because  of  that  splendor  and  beauty, 
but  because  the  act  of  creating  them  is  better  than  the  things 
themselves ;  because  exertion  is  nobler  than  enjoyment ;  because 
the  laborer  is  greater  and  more  worthy  of  honor  than  the  idler. 

Labor  is  Heaven's  great  ordinance  for  human  improvement. 
Let  not  the  great  ordinance  be  broken  down.  What  do  I  say  ?  It 
is  broken  down  ;  and  it  has  been  broken  down  for  ages.  Let  it, 
then,  be  built  again ;  here,  if  anywhere,  on  the  shores  of  a  new 
world,  of  a  new  civilization. 

But  how,  it  may  be  asked,  is  it  broken  down  ?  Do  not  men 
toil  ?  it  may  be  said.  They  do,  indeed,  toil ;  but  they  too  gener- 
ally do  because  they  must.  Many  submit  to  it,  as  in  some  sort  a 
degrading  necessity ;  and  they  desire  nothing  so  much  on  earth  as 
an  escape  from  it.  This  way  of  thinking  is  the  heritage  of  the 
absurd  and  unjust  feudal  system,  under  which  serfs  labored,  and 
gentlemen  spent  their  lives  in  fighting  and  feasting.  It  is  time 
that  this  opprobrium  of  toil  were  done  away. 

Ashamed  to  toil !  Ashamed  of  thy  dingy  work-shop  and  dusty 
labor-field ;  of  thy  hard  hand,  scarred  with  service  more  honorable 
than  that  of  war ;  of  thy  soiled  and  weather-stained  garments,  on 


128 


SPECIMENS  OF 


which  mother  Nature  has  embroidered  mist,  sun  and  rain,  fire  and 
steam,  —  her  own  heraldic  honors  !  Ashamed  of  those  tokens  and 
titles,  and  envious  of  the  flaunting  robes  of  imbecile  idleness  and 
vanity  !  It  is  treason  to  nature,  —  it  is  impiety  to  Heaven,  —  it 
is  breaking  Heaven's  great  ordinance  !  Toil,  toil,  either  of  the 
brain,  of  the  heart,  or  of  the  hand,  is  the  only  true  manhood,  tho 
only  true  nobility ! 


AMERICAN  INSTITUTIONS.  —  D.  Webster.' 

Who  is  there  among  us,  that,  should  he  find  himself  on  any  spot 
of  the  earth  where  human  beings  exist,  and  where  the  existence 
of  other  nations  is  known,  would  not  be  proud  to  say,  I  am  an 
American !  I  am  a  countryman  of  Washington !  I  am  a  citizen 
of  that  republic  which,  although  it  has  suddenly  sprung  up,  yet 
there  are  none  on  the  globe  who  have  ears  to  hear  and  have  not 
heard  of  it,  who  have  eyes  to  see  and  have  not  read  of  it,  who 
know  anything  and  yet  do  not  know  of  its  existence  and  its  glory  ? 
And,  gentlemen,  let  me  now  reverse  the  picture.  Let  me  ask, 
Who  there  is  among  us,  if  he  were  to  be  found  to-morrow  in  one  of 
the  civilized  countries  of  Europe,  and  were  there  to  learn  that  this 
goodly  form  of  government  had  been  overthrown,  —  that  the  United 
States  were  no  longer  united,  —  who  is  there  whose  heart  would 
not  sink  within  him  ?  Who  is  there  who  would  not  cover  his  face 
for  very  shame  ? 

At  this  very  moment,  gentlemen,  our  country  is  a  general  refuge 
for  the  distressed  and  the  persecuted  of  other  nations.  Whoever 
is  in  affliction  from  political  occurrences  in  his  own  country,  looks 
here  for  shelter.  Whether  he  be  republican,  flying  from  the 
oppression  of  thrones,  or  whether  he  be  monarch  or  monarchist, 
flying  from  thrones  that  crumble  and  fall  under  or  around  him,  — 
he  feels  equal  assurance  that,  if  he  get  foothold  on  our  soil,  his 
person  is  safe,  and  his  rights  will  be  respected. 

We  have  tried  these  popular  institutions  in  times  of  great  excite- 
ment and  commotion,  and  they  have  stood  substantially  firm  and 
steady,  while  the  fountains  of  the  great  political  deep  have  been 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


129 


elsewhere  broken  up;  while  thrones,  resting  on  ages  of  prescription, 
iiave  tottered  and  fallen ;  and  while,  in  other  countries,  the  earth- 
quake of  unrestrained  popular  commotion  has  swallowed  up  all  law, 
and  all  liberty,  and  all  right  together.  Our  government  has  been 
tried  in  peace,  and  it  has  been  tried  in  war,  and  has  proved  itself 
fit  for  both.  It  has  been  assailed  from  without,  and  it  has  suc- 
cessfully resisted  the  shock ;  it  has  been  disturbed  within,  and  it 
has  effectually  quieted  the  disturbance.  It  can  stand  trial,  it  can 
stand  assault,  it  can  stand  adversity,  —  it  can  stand  everything 
but  the  marring  of  its  own  beauty,  and  the  weakening  of  its  own 
strength.  It  can  stand  everything  but  the  effects  of  our  own  rash- 
ness and  our  own  folly.  It  can  stand  everything  but  disorganiza- 
tion, disunion,  and  nullification. 


HUMAN  LIFE.  —  H.  Greeley. 

Human  life !  how  inspiring,  how  boundless  the  theme  !  Sadly, 
wildly  has  the  poet  sung  of  it ;  calmly,  lucidly  has  the  historian 
traced  its  meanderings ;  earnestly,  gravely  have  the  priest  and  the 
sage  exposed  and  reproved  its  errors,  from  the  birth  of  the  race. 
The  muse's  story  depicts  it,  the  scholar's  research  illustrates,  the 
statesman's  harangue  illumines  and  exalts.  From  the  cradle  over 
which  the  young  mother  bends  with  a  novel  sensation  of  wondering 
delight,  to  the  bier  around  which  all  are  melted  in  the  brotherhood 
of  a  common  sorrow,  this  life  of  ours  is  a  marvel  and  a  poem. 
The  very  vitality  within  us,  the  warm  current  flowing  so  impetu- 
ously, yet  steadily,  from  centre  to  extremities,  and  returning  to 
renew  its  ceaseless  errand ;  the  beating  heart,  the  seething,  work- 
ing brain,  the  apt,  instinctive  eye  and  ear,  —  can  chemist  or  geol- 
ogist, juggler  or  magician,  show  us  wonders  greater  than  these  ? 
The  probing  physiologist,  the  deep  searcher  into  the  hidden  reason 
of  things,  begins  by  assuming  the  great  mystery  of  all  —  life; 
for  this  he  dare  not  hope  to  unravel.  Not  his  the  capacity  or  the 
hope  to  explain  how  or  why  it  is ;  here  he  must  content  him  with 
the  simple  fact  —  It  is. 


130 


SPECIMENS  OP 


Human  life  !  How  is  our  every  sympathy  entwined  with  each 
emotion  awakened  by  its  contemplation !  On  every  side  it  is 
putting  forth  manifestations  to  the  observing  eye  of  its  energy  and 
its  beauty.  Are  we  dwellers  in  the  country  ?  From  that  low- 
roofed  cottage  a  youth  is  going  forth  with  lofty  heart  to  do  and 
dare  on  the  great  battle-field  of  manly  adventure.  He  has  given 
ear  to  a  father's  counsel ;  he  has  knelt  to  receive  a  mother's  bless- 
ing ;  he  has  smiled  at  the  fears  and  regrets  expressed  by  younger 
or  tenderer  hearts  around  him,  — for  a  sanguine  spirit  urges  him 
on,  and  he  sees,  already,  fortune  and  honors  awaiting  him  in  the 
distant  city  to  which  his  eager  footsteps  tend.  Not  till  the  hour  of 
parting  has  come  and  passed  does  he  feel  how  heavy  the  chain  he 
drags  who  goes  forth  for  years  from  all  he  loves  on  earth ;  not  till 
the  stately-branching  elms  which  overhang  the  dear  spot  have 
waved  their  last  mute  adieus  to  his  backward  glances ;  not  till  the 
stream  which  was  the  companion  of  his  boyish  pastimes  has  bent 
away  from  his  rigid  course  and  buried  itself  among  wooded  hills, 
does  he  feel  that  he  has  shaken  off  the  companionships  and  supports 
of  his  youth,  and  is  utterly  alone.  Now  nerve  your  quivering 
heart,  young  adventurer !  Summon  every  thought  of  hope,  and 
pride,  and  shame,  and  press  sternly  onward,  —  for  a  feather's 
weight  might  almost  suffice  to  dash  all  your  high  resolutions,  to 
chase  away  the  dreams  of  hope  and  ambition,  and  send  you  back, 
an  early  penitent,  to  that  lowly  home  which  never  seemed  half  so 
dear  before. 

Are  we  dwellers  by  the  sea-side  ?  Here  the  sailor  is  bending 
the  white  canvass  for  a  voyage,  it  may  be,  around  the  world, 
Before  he  shall  again  drop  anchor  in  the  haven  which  he  deems 
his  home,  he  may  from  his  vessel's  deck  gaze  on  the  peaks  of  the 
Andes,  the  sulphurous  flames  of  Kirauea,  or  may  thread  with  his 
bark  the  perilous  windings  of  the  forest-mantled  Oregon,  may  sur- 
vey the  porcelain  towers  of  Canton,  or  the  naked  site  of  Troy, 
whose  very  ruins  have  vanished,  leaving  no  monument  of  their 
existence,  save  in  Homer's  undying  song. 

Here,  too,  the  emigrant  is  bidding  adieu  to  the  ungenial  land  of 
his  birth  and  his  love,  and,  with  his  household  gods  around  him,  is 


amekican  e;loq,uence. 


181 


seeking,  cn  a  distant,  shore,  a  soil  on  which  his  hopes  may  expand 
and  flourish.  Then  is  sadness,  then  is  anguish  in  the  parting 
hour;  the  tree  most  carefully  transplanted  must  leave  too  many 
fibres  in  its  native  soil ;  and  the  life-long  dweller  in  some  secluded 
valley  who  first  finds  himself  confronted  with  a  thousand  leagues  of 
raging  brine,  across  which  lies  the  way  to  his  unknown  future  home, 
may  well  recoil  and  shudder  at  the  prospect.  But  the  hoarse  order 
to  embark  is  given  and  obeyed ;  the  last  adieus  are  looked  from 
streaming  eyes ;  the  vessel  swings  slowly  from  her  moorings  ;  the 
young  look  out  in  wonder  on  the  bleak  waste  of  stormy  waters, 
and  turn  inquiringly  to  those  who  are,  perchance,  as  young  in  this 
hour's  sensations  as  they.  And  so  wears  on  the  passage ;  and,  at 
length,  amid  new  scenes,  new  toils,  anxieties  and  troubles,  the  pil- 
grim finds  that  care  rests  its  eternal  burden  on  man  wherever  he 
is  found, — that  earth  has  no  more  an  Eden.  What  recks  it? 
The  same  blue  heaven  bends  lovingly  over  all  the  children  of  men. 
New  scenes,  new  hopes,  new  prospects  speedily  dim  the  memory 
of  keenest  disappointments,  of  deepest  regrets;  and  the  heart 
transplanted  sends  out  its  tendrils  in  every  direction,  and  learns  to 
bloom  and  grow  again.  And  thus  do  all  of  us,  each  in  his  ap- 
pointed sphere  and  season,  open  new  chapters  in  the  great  volume 
of  human  life. 

But  let  us  not  contemplate  only  individual  aspects.  This  life 
of  ours  has  grander  proportions,  if  we  can  but  widen  the  sweep  of 
our  vision  so  as  to  reach  its  far  horizon.  Those  daily  acts,  those 
common  impulses,  which,  viewed  individually,  and  with  microscopic 
or  with  soulless  gaze,  seem  insignificant  or  trifling,  take  a  different 
aspect  if  regarded  in  a  more  catholic  spirit.  Those  myriad  ham- 
mers which,  impelled  by  brawny  arms,  are  ringing  out  their  rude 
melody  day  by  day,  contributing  to  the  comfort  and  sustenance  of 
man,  —  those  fleets  of  hardy  fishers  now  chasing  the  whale  on  the 
other  side  of  the  globe  to  give  light  to  the  city  mansion,  and  celer- 
ity to  the  wheels  of  the  village  factory,  —  those  armies  of  trappers, 
scattered  through  the  glens  of  the  Rocky  Mountains,  each  in 
stealthy  solitude  pursuing  his  deadly  trade,  whence  dames  of  Lon- 
don and  belles  of  Pekin  alike  shall  borrow  warmth  and  comeliness, 


132 


SPECIMENS  OF 


—  let  us  contemplate  these  in  their  several  classes,  unmindful  of ' 
the  leagues  of  wood,  or  plain,  or  water,  which  chance  to  divide  them. 
Readily  enough  do  we  perceive  and  acknowledge  the  grandeur  of 
the  great  army  which  some  chief  or  despot  assembles  and  draws  out 
to  feed  his  vanity  by  display,  or  his  ambition  by  carnage ;  but  the 
larger  and  nobler  armies,  whose  weapons  are  the  mattock  and  the 
spade,  who  overspread  the  hills  and  line  the  valleys,  until,  beneath 
their  rugged  skill  and  persevering  effort,  a  highway  of  commerce  is 
opened  where  late  the  panther  leaped,  the  deer  disported,  —  is  not 
theirs  the  nobler  spectacle,  more  worthy  of  the  orator's  apostrophe, 
the  poet's  song  ?  Let  us  look  boldly,  broadly  out  on  nature's  wide 
domain.  Let  us  note  the  irregular  yet  persistent  advance  of  the 
pioneers  of  civilization,  the  forest  conquerors,  before  whose  lusty 
strokes  and  sharp  blades  the  century-crowned  wood-monarchs,  rank 
after  rank,  come  crushing  to  the  earth.  From  age  to  age  have 
they  kept  apart  the  soil  and  the  sunshine,  as  they  shall  do  no 
longer.  Onward,  still  onward  pours  the  army  of  axe-men,  and 
still  before  them  toow  their  stubborn  foes.  But  yesterday,  their 
advance  was  checked  by  the  Ohio ;  to-day,  it  has  crossed  the  Mis- 
souri, the  Kansas,  and  is  fast  on  the  heels  of  the  flying  buffalo. 
In  the  eye  of  a  true  discernment,  what  host  of  Xerxes  or  Caesar, 
of  Frederick  or  Napoleon,  ever  equalled  this  in  majesty,  in  great- 
ness of  conquest,  or  in  true  glory  ? 

The  mastery  of  man  over  nature,  —  this  is  an  inspiring  truth, 
which  we  must  not  suffer,  from  its  familiarity,  to  lose  its  force. 
By  the  might  of  his  intellect,  man  has  not  merely  made  the  ele- 
phant his  drudge,  the  lion  his  diversion,  the  whale  his  magazine, 
but  even  the  subtlest  and  most  terrible  of  the  elements  are  the 
submissive  instruments  of  his  will.  He  turns  aside  or  garners  up 
the  lightning ;  the  rivers  toil  in  his  workshop  ;  the  tides  of  ocean 
bear  his  burdens ;  the  hurricane  rages  for  his  use  and  profit.  Fire 
and  water  struggle  for  mastery  that  he  may  be  whisked  over  hill 
and  valley  with  the  celerity  of  the  sunbeam.  The  stillness  of  the 
forest  midnight  is  broken  by  the  snort  of  the  iron  horse,  as  he  drags 
the  long  train  from  lakes  to  ocean  with  a  slave's  docility,  a  giant's 
strength.   Up  the  long  hill  he  labors,  over  the  deep  glen  he  skims 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


133 


the  tops  of  the  tall  trees  swaying  around  and  below  his  narrow 
path.  His  sharp,  quick  breathing  speaks  his  impetuous  progress ; 
a  stream  of  fire  reflects  its  course.  On  dashes  the  resistless,  tire- 
less steed,  and  the  morrow's  sun  shall  find  him  at  rest  in  some  far 
mart  of  commerce,  and  the  partakers  of  his  wizard  journey  scat- 
tered to  their  vocations  of  trade  or  pleasure,  unthinking  of  their 
night's  adventure.  What  has  old  romance  wherewith  to  match 
the  e very-day  realities  of  the  nineteenth  century  ? 


WAR  WITH  FRANCE.  —  /.  Buchanan. 

.  France  has  been  placed  before  the  world  by  her  rulers  in  the 
most  false  position  ever  occupied  by  a  brave  and  gallant  nation. 
She  believes  herself  to  be  insulted ;  and  what  is  the  consequence  ? 
She  refuses  to  pay  a  debt  now  admitted  to  be  just  by  all  the 
branches  of  her  government.  Her  wounded  feelings  are  estimated 
by  dollars  and  cents ;  and  she  withholds  twenty-five  millions  of 
francs,  due  to  a  foreign  nation,  to  soothe  her  injured  pride.  How 
are  the  mighty  fallen !  Truly  it  may  be  said  the  days  of  her 
chivalry  are  gone.  Have  the  pride  and  the  genius  of  Napoleon 
left  no  traces  of  themselves  under  the  constitutional  monarchy  ? 
In  private  life,  if  you  are  insulted  by  an  individual  to  whom  you 
are  indebted,  what  is  the  first  impulse  of  a  man  of  honor  ?  To 
owe  no  pecuniary  obligation  to  the  man  who  has  wounded  }Tour 
feelings ;  to  pay  him  the  debt  instantly,  and  to  demand  reparation 
for  the  insult ;  or,  at  the  least,  to  hold  no  friendly  communication 
with  him  afterwards. 

The  only  question  with  you  now,  is  not  one  of  substance,  but 
merely  whether  these  explanations  are  in  proper  form.  But  in 
regard  to  the  United  States,  the  question  is  far  different.  What  is 
with  you  mere  etiquette,  is  a  question  of  life  and  death  to  them. 
Let  the  president  of  the  United  States  make  the  apology  which  you 
have  dictated,  let  him  once  admit  the  right  of  a  foreign  government 
to  question  his  messages  to  Congress,  and  to  demand  explanations 
of  any  language  at  which  they  may  choose  to  take  offence,  and 
12 


134 


SPECIMENS  OF 


their  independent  existence  as  a  government,  to  that  extent,  is 
virtually  destroyed. 

We  must  remember  that  France  may  yield  with  honor ;  we 
never  can  without  disgrace.  Will  she  yield  ?  That  is  the  ques- 
tion. She  must  still  believe  that  the  people  of  this  country  are 
divided  in  opinion  in  regard  to  the  firm  maintenance  of  their  rights. 
In  this  she  will  find  herself  entirely  mistaken.  But  should  Con- 
gress, at  the  present  session,  refuse  to  sustain  the  president,  by 
adopting  measures  of  defence,  —  should  the  precedent  of  the  last 
session  be  followed  for  the  present  year,  then  I  shall  entertain  the 
most  gloomy  forebodings.  The  father  of  his  country  has  informed 
us  that  the  best  mode  of  preserving  peace  is  to  be  prepared  for 
war.  I  firmly  believe,  therefore,  that  a  unanimous  vote  of  the  sen- 
ate in  favor  of  the  resolutions  now  before  them,  to  follow  to  Europe 
the  acceptance  of  the  mediation,  would,  almost  to  a  certainty,  ren- 
der it  successful.  It  would  be  an  act  of  the  soundest  policy,  as 
well  as  of  the  highest  patriotism.  It  would  prove,  not  that  we 
intend  to  menace  France,  because  such  an  attempt  would  be  ridic- 
ulous, but  that  the  American  people  are  unanimous  in  the  asser- 
tion of  their  rights,  and  have  resolved  to  prepare  for  the  worst. 
A  French  fleet  is  now  hovering  upon  our  coasts ;  and  shall  we  sit 
still,  with  an  overflowing  treasury,  and  leave  our  country  defence- 
less ?  This  will  never  be  said  with  truth  of  the  American  Con- 
gress. 

If  war  should  come,  —  which  God  forbid, — if  France  should  still 
persist  in  her  efforts  to  degrade  the  American  people  in  the  person 
of  their  chief  magistrate,  we  may  appeal  to  Heaven  for  the  justice 
of  our  cause,  and  look  forward  with  confidence  to  victory  from  that 
Being  in  whose  hands  is  the  destiny  of  nations. 


POPULAR  EXCITEMENT  IN  ELECTIONS.  —  G.  McDuffis. 

I  Not  only  maintain  that  the  people  are  exempt  from  the  charge 
of  violence,  but  that  there  is  a  .tendency  to  carry  the  feeling  of 
indifference  to  public  affairs  to  a  dangerous  extreme     From  the 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


135 


peculiar  structure  and  commercial  spirit  of  modern  society,  and 
the  facilities  presented  in  our  country  for  the  acquisition  of 
wealth,  the  eager  pursuit  of  gain  predominates  over  our  concern 
for  the  affairs  of  the  republic.  This  is,  perhaps,  our  national 
foible.  Wealth  is  the  object  of  our  idolatry ;  and  even  liberty  is 
worshipped  in  the  form  of  property.  Although  this  spirit,  by 
stimulating  industry,  is  unquestionably  excellent  in  itself,  yet  it  is 
to  be  apprehended  that,  in  a  period  of  peace  and  tranquillity,  it 
will  become  too  strong  for  patriotism,  and  produce  the  greatest  of 
national  evils  —  popular  apathy. 

We  have  been  frequently  told  that  the  farmer  should  attend  to 
his  plough,  and  the  mechanic  to  his  handicraft,  during  the  canvass 
for  the  presidency.  A  more  dangerous  doctrine  could  not  be 
inculcated.  If  there  is  any  spectacle  from  the  contemplation  of 
which  I  would  shrink  with  peculiar  horror,  it  would  be  that  of  the 
great  mass  of  the  American  people  sunk  into  a  profound  apathy  on 
the  subject  of  their  highest  political  interests.  Such  a  spectacle 
would  be  more  portentous  to  the  eye  of  intelligent  patriotism,  than 
all  the  monsters  of  the  earth,  and  fiery  signs  of  the  heavens,  to  the 
eye  of  trembling  superstition.  If  the  people  could  be  indifferent 
to  the  fate  of  a  contest  for  the  presidency,  they  would  be  unworthy 
of  freedom.  If  I  were  to  perceive  them  sinking  into  this  apathy, 
I  would  even  apply  the  power  of  political  galvanism,  if  such  a 
power  could  be  found,  to  rouse  them  from  their  fatal  lethargy. 
Keep  the  people  quiet !  Peace !  peace !  Such  are  the  whispers 
by  which  the  people  are  to  be  lulled  to  sleep,  in  the  very  crisis 
of  their  highest  concerns.  "  You  make  a  solitude,  and  call  it 
peace  !  "  Peace  ?  'T  is  death  !  Take  away  all  interest  from  the 
people  in  the  election  of  their  chief  ruler,  and  liberty  is  no  more. 
What  is  to  be  the  consequence  ?  If  the  people  do  not  elect  the 
president,  somebody  must.  There  is  no  special  providence  to 
decide  the  question.  Who,  then,  is  to  make  the  election,  and  how 
will  it  operate  ?  You  throw  a  general  paralysis  over  the  body 
politic,  and  excite  a  morbid  action  in  particular  members.  The 
general  patriotic  excitement  of  the  people,  in  relation  to  the  elec- 
tion of  the  president,  is  as  essential  to  the  health  and  energy  of  the 


136 


SPECIMENS  OF 


political  system,  as  circulation  of  the  blood  is  to  the  health  and 
energy  of  the  natural  body.  Check  that  circulation,  and  you 
inevitably  produce  local  inflammation,  gangrene,  and,  ultimately, 
death.  Make  the  people  indifferent,  destroy  their  legitimate  influ- 
ence, and  you  communicate  a  morbid  violence  to  the  efforts  of  those 
who  are  ever  ready  to  assume  the  control  of  such  affairs,  —  the 
mercenary  intriguers  and  interested  office-hunters  of  the  country. 
Tell  me  not  of  popular  violence !  Show  me  a  hundred  political 
factionists,  — men  who  look  to  the  election  of  a  president  as  the 
means  of  gratifying  their  high  or  their  low  ambition,  —  and  I  will 
show  you  the  very  materials  for  a  mob,  ready  for  any  desperate 
adventure  connected  with  their  common  fortunes.  The  reason  of 
this  extraordinary  excitement  is  obvious.  It  is  a  matter  of  self- 
interest,  of  personal  ambition.  The  people  can  have  no  such 
motives.    They  look  only  to  the  interest  and  glory  of  the  country. 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  HUMAN  LIBERTY.  —  D.  Webstsr. 

The  spirit  of  human  liberty  and  of  free  government,  nurtured 
and  grown  into  strength  and  beauty  in  America,  has  stretched  its 
course  into  the  midst  of  the  nations.  Like  an  emanation  from 
heaven,  it  has  gone  forth,  and  it  will  not  return  void.  It  must 
change,  it  is  fast  changing,  the  face  of  the  earth.  Our  great,  our 
high  duty  is  to  show,  in  our  own  examples,  that  this  spirit  is  a 
spirit  of  health  as  well  as  a  spirit  of  power;  that  its  benignity  is 
as  great  as  its  strength  ;  that  its  efficiency  to  secure  individual 
rights,  social  relations,  and  moral  order,  is  equal  to  the  irresistible 
force  with  which  it  prostrates  principalities  and  powers.  The 
world,  at  this  moment,  is  regarding  us  with  a  willing,  but  some- 
thing of  a  fearful,  admiration.  Its  deep  and  awful  anxiety  is  to 
learn,  whether  free  states  may  be  stable  as  well  as  free;  whether 
popular  power  may  be  trusted  as  well  as  feared ;  —  in  short,  whether 
wise,  regular  and  virtuous  self-government  is  a  vision  for  the  con- 
templation of  theorists,  or  a  truth,  established,  illustrated,  and 
brought  into  practice,  in  the  country  of  Washington. 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


137 


For  the  earth  which  we  inhabit,  and  the  whole  circle  of  the  sun, 
for  all  the  unborn  races  of  mankind,  we  seem  to  hold  in  our  hands, 
for  their  weal  or  woe,  the  fate  of  this  experiment.  If  we  fail,  who 
shall  venture  trie  repetition  ?  If  our  example  shall  prove  to  be  one, 
not  of  encouragement,  but  of  terror,  —  not  fit  to  be  imitated,  but 
fit  only  to  be  shunned,  —  where  else  shall  the  world  look  for  free 
models  ?  If  this  great  western  sun  be  struck  out  of  the  firma- 
ment, at  what  other  fountain  shall  the  lamp  of  liberty  hereafter  be 
lighted?  What  other  orb  shall  emit  a  ray  to  glimmer,  even,  on 
the  darkness  of  the  world  ? 


THE  DESTINY  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES.  —  H.  W.  HtUiard. 

When  Oregon  shall  be  in  our  possession,  when  we  shall  have 
established  a  profitable  trade  with  China  through  her  ports,  when 
our  ships  traverse  the  Pacific  as  they  now  cross  the  Atlantic,  and 
all  the  countless  consequences  of  such  a  state  of  things  begin  to 
flow  in  upon  us,  then  will  be  fulfilled  that  vision  which  rapt  and 
filled  the  mind  of  Nunez  as  he  gazed  over  the  placid  waves  of  the 
Pacific. 

I  will  now  address  myself  for  a  moment  to  the  moral  aspect  of 
this  great  question.  Gentlemen  have  talked  much  and  eloquently 
about  the  horrors  of  war.  I  should  regret  the  necessity  of  a  war  ; 
I  should  deplore  its  dreadful  scenes ;  —  but  if  the  possession  of 
Oregon  gives  us  a  territory  opening  upon  the  nation  prospects 
such  as  I  describe,  and  if,  for  the  simple  exercise  of  our  rights  in 
regard  to  it,  Great  Britain  should  wage  war  upon  us,  —  an  unjust 
war,  —  the  regret  which  every  one  must  feel  will,  at  least,  have 
much  to  counterbalance  it.  One  of  England's  own  writers  has 
said  :  "  The  possible  destiny  of  the  United  States  of  America,  as  a 
nation  of  one  hundred  millions  of  freemen,  stretching  from  the 
Atlantic  to  the  Pacific,  living  under  the  laws  of  Alfred,  and  speak- 
ing the  language  of  Shakspeare  and  Milton,  is  an  august  con- 
ception." 

It  is  an  august  conception,  finely  embodied ;  and  I  trust  in  God 
12* 


138  SPECIMENS  OF 

that  it  will,  at  no  distant  time,  become  a  reality.  I  trust  that  the 
world  will  see,  through  all  time,  our  people  living,  not  only  under 
the  laws  of  Alfred,  but  that  they  will  be  heard  to  speak,  through- 
out our  wide-spread  borders,  the  language  of  Shakspeare  and 
Milton.  Above  all  is  it  my  prayer  that,  as  long  as  our  posterity 
shall  contine  to  inhabit  these  mountains  and  plains,  and  hills  and 
valleys,  they  may  be  found  living  under  the  sacred  institutions  of 
Christianity.  Put  these  things  together,  and  what  a  picture  do 
they  present  to  the  mental  eye !  Civilization  and  intelligence 
started  in  the  East ;  they  have  travelled,  and  are  still  travelling, 
westward ;  but  when  they  shall  have  completed  the  circuit  of  the 
earth,  and  reached  the  extremest  verge  of  the  Pacific  shores,  then 
unlike  the  fabled  god  of  the  ancients,  who  dipped  his  glowing  axle 
in  the  western  wave,  they  will  take  up  their  permanent  abode 
then  shall  we  enjoy  the  sublime  destiny  of  returning  these  bless 
ings  to  their  ancient  seat ;  then  will  it  be  ours  to  give  the  pricele 
benefits  of  our  free  institutions,  and  the  pure  and  healthful  light 
of  the  gospel,  back  to  the  dark  family  which  has  so  long  lost  both 
truth  and  freedom ;  then  may  Christianity  plant  herself  there, 
and  while  with  one  hand  she  points  to  the  Polynesian  isles,  rejoic- 
ing in  the  late-recovered  treasure  of  revealed  truth,  with  the  other 
present  the  Bible  to  the  Chinese.  It  is  our  duty  to  aid  in  this 
great  work.  I  trust  we  shall  esteem  it  as  much  our  honor  as  our 
duty.  Let  us  not,  like  some  of  the  British  missionaries,  give  them 
the  Bible  in  one  hand  and  opium  in  the  other,  but  bless  them  only 
with  the  pure  word  of  truth.  I  hope  the  day  is  not  distant,  — 
soon,  soon  may  its  dawn  arise  !  —  to  shed  upon  the  farthest  and  the 
most  benighted  of  nations  the  splendor  of  more  than  a  tropical  sun. 


THE  NATIONAL  DEFENCES.  —  F.  Pierce. 

In  this  age  of  progress,  in  this  land  of  invention  and  almost 
boundless  resoi.rces,  we  are  not  the  people  to  stand  still.  We 
have  not  stood  still.  But  while  individual  enterprise  has  kept 
pace,  in  all  the  'various  pursuits  of  life,  with  the  best  improvements 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


139 


of  the  da  ",  it  must  be  admitted,  considering  our  position  upon  the 
globe,  —  the  immense  extent  of  our  maritime  frontier,  —  the  mode 
in  which  we  must  be  assailed,  if  ever  successfully,  by  a  foreign  foe, 
—  the  easy  access  to  our  most  commanding  harbors,  —  the  vast 
importance  and  exposed  condition  of  our  great  commercial  cities, 
especially  since  the  successful  application  of  steam-power  to  ocean 
navigation,  —  that  we  have  been  singularly  regardless  of  the 
improvements  which  in  other  countries,  especially  in  France  and 
England,  have  been  and  are  rapidly  changing  the  character  of  mil- 
itary operations,  offensive  and  defensive,  both  on  the  land  and  on 
the  sea. 

There  are  some  things  about  the  military  defences  of  this  coun- 
try which  may  be  considered  as  settled.  I  regard  it  as  certain 
that  no  large  standing  army  is  ever  to  be  maintained  here,  in  time 
of  peace,  while  our  free  institutions  remain  unshaken.  In  this  we 
differ  entirely  from  those  nations  with  whom,  from  our  position 
land  political  relations,  we  are  in  the  greatest  danger  of  a  collision. 
It  is  equally  certain,  in  my  judgment,  that  stationary  fortifications, 
in  the  best  condition,  with  abundance  of  materitl,  and  well  manned, 
will  prove  entirely  inadequate  to  the  defence  of  even  our  large 
commercial  cities.  It  must  be  regarded  as  not  less  clear,  that  no 
foreign  power  can  ever  embark  in  the  Quixotic  enterprise  of  con- 
quering this  country,  unless  its  constitution  shall  first  be  trampled 
in  the  dust  by  its  children.  Such  a  project  can  never  be  soberly 
contemplated  while  we  are  a  united  people.  During  our  Revolu- 
tion, —  in  the  weakness  of  our  infancy,  —  the  invaders  could 
scarcely  command  more  ground  than  they  were  able  immediately 
to  occupy. 

The  leading  purposes  of  an  enemy  will  be,  by  the  celerity  and 
boldness  of  his  movements  on  our  coast,  to  keep  up  a  constant 
alarm  ;  to  harass  and  cut  off  our  commerce;  to  destroy  our  naval 
depots  and  public  works ;  and,  if  possible,  to  lay  our  great  com- 
mercial cities  under  contribution  or  in  ashes.  It  is  against  prompt 
movements  and  vigorous  exertions  for  objects  like  these,  that  we 
should  prepare  and  provide.  France  and  England  have,  and 
ilways  must  maintain,  large  and  well-appointed  standing  armies ; 


140  SPECIMENS  or 


or 


they  are  the  indispensable  appendages  of  royal  power  and  domin- 
ion, without  which  no  monarch  in  Europe  can  retain  his  crown  a 
single  year.  They  have  not  only  armies,  but  they  have  now  the 
means  of  planting  them  upon  our  shores,  —  miy,  of  quartering 
them  in  the  heart  of  our  cities,  —  before  we  can  set  in  order  our 
insufficient  and  now  deserted  fortresses,  or  call  into  the  field  an 
effective  force,  organized  as  our  militia  at  present  is.  Indeed,  i 
some  of  the  states  there  is  no  organization  whatever ;  it  is  wholly 
disbanded,  and  men,  whose  thoughts  were  never  elevated  above  the 
contemplation  of  loss  and  gain,  are  out  in  the  newspapers  with  i 
their  calculations  to  show  exactly  how  many  dollars  and  cents  may 
be  saved  annually  by  the  "  disbandment "  of  this  safe  and  sure 
auxiliary  in  our  national  defence. 

I  cannot  help  feeling  strongly  upon  this  subject,  because  I  have 
witnessed  the  deep  lethargy  in  which  the  spirit  of  the  nation,  easilv 
roused  to  everything  else,  has  seemed  to  slumber  here.  Within 
the  last  few  years  war-clouds  have  lowered  most  portentously  upor. 
our  horizon,  and  on  one  or  two  occasions  seemed  ready  to  burst 
and  scatter  far  and  wide  the  calamities  of  that  dreadful  scourge 
What  was  the  effect  upon  the  government  and  the  country,  when 
upon  the  question  of  money,  we  were  upon  the  eve  of  a  war  witl 
one  of  the  most  powerful  and  gallant  nations  of  the  earth  ?  Dii 
we  manifest  a  willingness  to  apply  our  money  in  preparation  fo 
the  contest  ?    No !    There  was,  as  usual,  no  want  of  patrioti 
demonstration  in  the  way  of  speeches,  but  they  were  followed  b; 
nothing  like  decisive  action.    Through  the  country  there  appeare 
to  be  a  profound  repose,  and  blind  trusting  to  luck,  in  the  face  o 
admitted  imminent  danger.    In  the  beneficent  ordination  of  Pro\ 
idence,  and  through  the  energy  and  wisdom  of  that  extraordinar 
man,  who  always  proved  equal  to  great  occasions,  the  impendin 
danger  was  happily  averted. 

How  was  it  more  recently,  when,  for  a  long  time,  there  ha' 
been  a  quasi  war  along  our  whole  border,  from  St.  John's  to  tl 
lakes  ?    In  whait  condition  did  the  evening  of  the  2d  of  Marc! 
1839,  find  the  country  ?    In  what  state  did  it  find  us  in  our  plac 
here  ?    Like  the  nation  generally  —  calm  and  undisturbed.  So 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


141 


ators  then  present  will  not  soon  forget  the  scene  that  followed  the 
arrival  of  the  eastern  mail  that  night.  The  stirring  report  soon 
passed  around  the  chamber,  "  There  has  been  a  battle  upon  our 
eastern  frontier ;  the  blood  of  our  citizens  has  been  shed  upon  our 
own  soil !  "  A  change  came  over  the  spirit  of  our  dream.  Every 
countenance  was  lighted  up  with  high  excitement.  We  were  at 
last,  when  the  strange  spell  of  fancied  security  could  no  longer 
oind  us,  roused  as  from  the  delusion  of  a  charm ;  we  awoke  as 
from  the  trance  of  years ;  as  from  a  dream  we  opened  our  eyes 
upon  a  full  view  of  the  nearness  and  magnitude  of  our  danger.  I 
shall  never  forget  the  bearing,  on  that  occasion,  nor  the  burning 
words  of  an  honorable  senator  on  the  other  side  of  the  chamber, 
not  now  in  his  place.  He  seemed  to  feel  that,  by  our  culpable 
neglect  to  provide  the  means  of  defence,  we  had  invited  aggression, 
and  that  we  ought  ourselves  to  take  our  places  in  the  fiercest  of  tho 
eddying  storm  which,  it  was  then  supposed,  had  already  burst  upon 
our  border  brethren.  What  was  done  ?  All  that  could  be  done 
under  the  circumstances.  The  constitutional  term  of  one  branch 
}f  Congress  had  but  a  few  more  hours  to  run.  There  was  little 
time  for  deliberation ;  but  we  showed  that  there  was  one  contin- 
gency in  which  we  could  merge  everything  like  party,  and  present 
an  unbroken  front.  We  passed  a  bill,  placing  at  the  disposal  of 
the  president  the  whole  militia  of  the  United  States,  to  be  com- 
pelled to  serve  for  a  term  not  exceeding  six  months ;  to  raise  fifty 
thousand  volunteers  ;  to  equip,  man,  and  employ  in  active  service 
all  the  naval  force  of  the  United  States ;  and  to  build,  purchase  or 
.charter,  arm,  equip  and  man  such  vessels  and  steamboats  on  the 
northern  lakes  and  rivers,  whose  waters  communicated  with  the 
United  States  and  Great  Britain,  as  he  should  deem  necessary. 
This  fearful  responsibility  was  cast  upon  one  individual.  This 
vast  command,  with  ten  millions  of  dollars  to  make  it  effectual, 
was  committed  to  the  sole  discretion  and  patriotism  of  the  presi- 
dent. No  man  who  loves  his  country  can  but  deprecate  the  neces- 
sity of  placing  such  tremendous  and  fearful  powers  in  the  hands 
^f  one  man,  however  wise  and  disinterested. 

I  wr,rn  the  people  against  another  such  crisis.    Sooner  or  later 


142 


SPECIMENS  OF 


it  will  come,  and  perhaps  unattended  by  that  good  fortune  which 
has  thus  far  borne  us  on  in  peace.  At  all  events,  it  is  the  most 
fatal  temerity  to  depend  upon  it,  and  neglect  the  necessary  prepa- 
rations. We  should  provide  our  harbors,  in  addition  to  the  sta- 
tionary fortifications,  with  the  best  floating  defences  known  to  the 
world.  We  should  make  our  navy  equal  at  least  to  one  sixth  of 
that  of  Great  Britain.  We  should  provide  for  an  organization  of 
the  militia  to  be  efficient  and  uniform  throughout  the  Union. 
Thus  prepared,  with  our  large  cities  in  a  suitable  state  of  defence, 
and  with  six  hundred  thousand  disciplined  citizen  soldiers,  so 
enrolled  and  organized  as  to  admit  of  being  promptly  mustered  and 
called  into  the  field,  we  shall  be  ready  for  the  conflict  which,  under 
such  circumstances,  will  hardly  be  pressed  upon  us. 


ANNIVERSARY  OF  THE  BOSTON  MASSACRE.  —  /.  Warren. 

You  have,  my  friends  and  countrymen,  frustrated  the  designs 
of  your  enemies,  by  your  unanimity  and  fortitude ;  it  was  your 
union  and  determined  spirit  which  expelled  those  troops  who  pol- 
luted your  streets  with  innocent  blood.  You  have  appointed  this 
anniversary  as  a  standard  memorial  of  the  bloody  consequences  of 
placing  an  armed  force  in  a  populous  city,  and  of  your  deliverance 
from  the  clangers  which  then  seemed  to  hang  over  your  heads ; 
and  I  am  confident  that  you  will  never  betray  the  least  want  of 
spirit  when  called  upon  to  guard  your  freedom.  None  but  they 
who  set  a  just  value  upon  the  blessings  of  liberty  are  worthy  to 
enjoy  her ;  your  illustrious  fathers  were  her  zealous  votaries ;  — 
when  the  blasting  frowns  of  tyranny  drove  her  from  public  view, 
they  clasped  her  in  their  arms ;  they  cherished  her  in  their  gen- 
erous bosoms ;  they  brought  her  safe  over  the  rough  ocean,  and 
fixed  her  seat  in  this  then  dreary  wilderness ;  they  nursed  her 
infant  age  with  the  most  tender  care ;  for  her  sake,  they  patiently 
bore  the  severest  hardships ;  for  her  support,  they  underwent  the 
most  rugged  toils  ;  in  her  defence,  they  boldly  encountered  the 
most  alarming  dangers ;  neither  the  ravenous  beasts  that  ranged 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


143 


the  woods  for  prey,  nor  the  more  furious  savages  of  the  wilderness, 
could  damp  their  ardor !  Whilst  with  one  hand  they  broke  the 
stubborn  glebe,  with  the  other  they  grasped  their  weapons,  ever 
ready  to  protect  her  from  danger.  No  sacrifice,  not  even  their 
own  blood,  was  esteemed  too  rich  a  libation  for  her  altar.  God 
prospered  their  valor ;  they  preserved  her  brilliancy  unsullied ; 
they  enjoyed  her  whilst  they  lived,  and,  dying,  bequeathed  the 
dear  inheritance  to  your  care.  And,  as  they  left  you  this  glorious 
legacy,  they  have  undoubtedly  transmitted  to  you  some  portion  of 
their  noble  spirit,  to  inspire  you  with  virtue  to  merit  her,  and 
courage  to  preserve  her.  You  surely  cannot,  with  such  examples 
before  your  eyes  as  every  page  of  the  history  of  this  country 
affords,  suffer  your  liberties  to  be  ravished  from  you  by  a  lawless 
force,  or  cajoled  away  by  flattery  and  fraud. 

The  voice  of  your  fathers'  blood  cries  to  you  from  the  ground, 
My  sons,  scorn  to  be  slaves !  In  vain  we  met  the  frowns  of 
tyrants ;  in  vain  we  crossed  the  boisterous  ocean,  found  a  new 
world,  and  prepared  it  for  the  happy  residence  of  liberty ;  in  vain 
we  toiled,  in  vain  we  fought,  we  bled  in  vain,  if  you,  our  offspring, 
want  valor  to  repel  the  assaults  of  her  invaders !  Stain  not  the 
glory  of  your  worthy  ancestors ;  but,  like  them,  resolve  never  to 
part  with  your  birthright.  Be  wise  in  your  deliberations,  and  deter- 
mined in  your  exertions  for  the  preservation  of  your  liberties. 
Follow  not  the  dictates  of  passion,  but  enlist  yourselves  under  the 
sacred  banner  of  reason.  Use  every  method  in  your  power  to  secure 
your  rights.  At  least,  prevent  the  curses  of  posterity  from  being 
heaped  upon  your  memories. 

If  you,  with  united  zeal  and  fortitude,  oppose  the  torrent  of 
oppression ;  if  you  feel  the  true  fire  of  patriotism  burning  in 
your  breasts;  if  you  from  your  souls  despise  the  most  gaudy 
dress  that  slavery  can  wear ;  if  you  really  prefer  the  lonely  cottage 
(whilst  blessed  with  liberty)  to  gilded  palaces,  surrounded  with 
the  ensigns  of  slavery,  —  you  may  have  the  fullest  assurance  that 
tyranny,  with  her  whole  accursed  train,  will  hide  their  hideous 
heads  in  confusion,  shame  and  despair.  If  you  perform  your  part, 
you  must  have  the  strongest  confidence  that  the  same  Almighty 


144  SPECIMENS  OJt 

Being,  who  protected  jour  pious  and  venerable  forefathers,  who 
enabled  them  to  turn  a  barren  wilderness  into  a  fruitful  field,  who 
so  often  made  bare  his  arm  for  their  salvation,  will  still  be  mindful 
of  you,  their  offspring. 

May  this  Almighty  Being  graciously  preside  in  all  our  councils. 
May  he  direct  us  to  such  measures  as  he  himself  shall  approve,  and 
be  pleased  to  bless.  May  we  ever  be  a  people  favored  of  God. 
May  our  land  be  a  land  of  liberty,  the  seat  of  virtue,  the  asylum 
of  the  oppressed,  a  name  and  a  praise  in  the  whole  earth,  until  the 
last  shock  of  time  shall  bury  the  empires  of  the  world  in  one  com- 
mon, undistinguished  ruin  ! 



THE  PERMANENCE  OF  AMERICAN  LIBERTY.  —  G.  McDuffie. 

The  election  of  a  chief  magistrate  by  the  mass  of  the  people  of 
an  extensive  community,  was,  to  the  most  enlightened  nations  of 
antiquity,  a  political  impossibility.  Destitute  of  the  art  of  print- 
ing, they  could  not  have  introduced  the  representative  principle  into 
their  political  systems,  even  if  they  had  understood  it.  In  the 
very  nature  of  things,  that  principle  can  only  be  coextensive  with 
popular  intelligence.  In  this  respect,  the  art  of  printing,  more 
than  any  invention  since  the  creation  of  man,  is  destined  to  change 
and  elevate  the  political  condition  of  society.  It  has  given  a  new 
impulse  to  the  energies  of  -  the  human  mind,  and  opens  new  and 
brilliant  destinies  to  modern  republics,  which  were  utterly  unat- 
tainable by  the  ancients.  The  existence  of  a  country  population, 
scattered  over  a  vast  extent  of  territory,  as  intelligent  as  the  pop- 
ulation of  the  cities,  is  a  phenomenon  which  was  utterly  and  neces- 
sarily unknown  to  the  free  states  of  antiquity.  All  the  intelligence 
which  controlled  the  destiny  and  upheld  the  dominion  of  republican 
Rome  was  confined  to  the  walls  of  the  great  city.  Even  when 
her  dominion  extended  beyond  Italy  to  the  utmost  known  limits 
of  the  inhabited  world,  the  city  was  the  exclusive  seat  both  of 
intelligence  and  empire.  Without  the  art  of  printing,  and  the  con- 
sequent advantages  of  a  free  press,  that  habitual  and  incessant 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


145 


action  of  mind  upon  mind,  which  is  essential  to  all  human  improve- 
ment, could  no  more  exist  among  a  numerous  and  scattered  popu- 
lation, than  the  commerce  of  disconnected  continents  could  traverse 
the  ocean  without  the  art  of  navigation.  Here,  then,  is  the  source 
of  our  superiority,  and  our  just  pride  as  a  nation.  The  statesmen 
of  the  remotest  extremes  of  the  Union  can  converse  together,  like 
the  philosophers  of  Athens  in  the  same  portico,  or  the  politicians 
of  Rome  in  the  same  forum.  Distance  is  overcome,  and  the  citi- 
zens of  Georgia  and  of  Maine  can  be  brought  to  cooperate  in  the 
same  great  object,  with  as  perfect  a  community  of  views  and  feel- 
ings as  actuated  the  tribes  of  Rome  in  the  assemblies  of  the 
people.  It  is  obvious  that  liberty  has  a  more  extensive  and  dura- 
ble foundation  in  the  United  States  than  it  ever  has  had  in  any 
other  age  or  country.  By  the  representative  principle,  —  a  prin- 
ciple unknown  and  impracticable  among  the  ancients,  —  the  whole 
mass  of  society  is  brought  to  operate  in  constraining  the  action  of 
power  and  in  the  conservation  of  public  liberty. 


THE  EXPERIMENT  OF  SELF-GOVERNMENT.  —  E.  Everett. 

We  are  summoned  to  new  energy  and  zeal  by  the  high  nature 
of  the  experiment  we  are  appointed  in  Providence  to  make,  and 
the  grandeur  of  the  theatre  on  which  it  is  to  be  performed.  When 
the  Old  World  afforded  no  longer  any  hope,  it  pleased  Heaven  to 
open  this  last  refuge  of  humanity.  The  attempt  has  begun,  and 
is  going  on,  far  from  foreign  corruption,  on  the  broadest  scale,  and 
under  the  most  benignant  auspices ;  and  it  certainly  rests  with  us 
to  solve  the  great  problem  in  human  society,  to  settle,  and  that 
forever,  the  momentous  question,  whether  mankind  can  be  trusted 
with  a  purely  popular  system.  One  might  almost  think,  without 
extravagance,  that  the  departed  wise  and  good  of  all  places  and 
times  are  looking  down  from  their  happy  seats  to  witness  what 
shall  now  be  done  by  us ;  that  they,  who  lavished  their  treasures 
and  their  blood  of  old,  who  labored  and  suffered,  who  spake  and 
wrote,  who  fought  and  perished,  in  the  one  great  cause  of  freedom 
13 


146 


specimens  Gl- 


and truth,  are  now  hanging  from  their  orbs  on  high,  over  the  last 
solemn  experiment  of  humanity.  As  I  have  wandered  over  the 
spots  once  the  scene  of  their  labors,  and  mused  among  the  pros- 
trate columns  of  their  senate-houses  and  forums,  I  have  seemed 
almost  to  hear  a  voice  from  the  tombs  of  departed  ages,  f:om  the 
sepulchres  of  the  nations  which  died  before  the  sight.  They 
exhort  us,  they  adjure  us  to  be  faithful  to  our  trust.  They 
implore  us,  by  the  long  trials  of  struggling  humanity  ;  by  the 
blessed  memory  of  the  departed  ;  by  the  dear  faith  which  has  been 
plighted  by  pure  hands  to  the  holy  cause  of  truth  and  man ;  by 
the  awful  secrets  of  the  prison-houses  where  the  sons  of  freedom 
have  been  immured ;  by  the  noble  heads  which  have  been  brought 
to  the  block ;  by  the  wrecks  of  time ;  by  the  eloquent  ruins  of 
nations,  —  they  conjure  us  not  to  quench  the  light  which  is  rising 
on  the  world.  Greece  cries  to  us,  by  the  convulsed  lips  of  her 
poisoned,  dying  Demosthenes ;  and  Rome  pleads  with  us  in  the 
mute  persuasion  of  her  mangled  Tully. 

In  that  high  romance,  if  romance  it  be,  in  which  the  great 
minds  of  antiquity  sketched  the  fortunes  of  the  ages  to  come,  they 
pictured  to  themselves  a  favored  region  beyond  the  ocean,  a  land 
of  equal  laws  and  happy  men.  The  primitive  poets  beheld  it  in 
the  islands  of  the  blest ;  the  Doric  bards  surveyed  it  in  the  hyper- 
borean regions ;  the  sage  of  the  academy  placed  it  in  the  lost 
Atlantis ;  and  even  the  sterner  spirit  of  Seneca  could  discern  a 
fairer  abode  of  humanity  in  distant  regions  then  unknown.  We 
look  back  upon  these  uninspired  predictions,  and  almost  recoil  from 
the  obligations  they  imply.  By  us  must  these  fair  visions  be  real- 
ized; by  us  must  be  fulfilled  these  high  promises,  which  burst  in 
trying  hours  from  the  longing  hearts  of  the  champions  of  truth. 
There  are  no  more  continents  or  worlds  to  be  revealed  ;  Atlantis 
hath  arisen  from  the  ocean ;  the  farthest  Thule  is  reached ;  there 
are  no  more  retreats  beyond  the  sea,  no  more  discoveries,  no  more 
hopes.  Here,  then,  a  mighty  work  is  to  be  fulfilled,  or  never,  by 
the  race  of  mortals.  The  man,  who  looks  with  tenderness  on  the 
sufferings  of  good  men  in  other  times ;  the  descendant  of  the  Pil- 
grims, who  cherishes  the  memory  of  his  fathers ;  the  patriot,  who 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


147 


feels  an  honest  glow  at  the  majesty  of  the  system  of  which  he  is  a 
member ;  the  scholar,  who  beholds  with  rapture  the  long-sealed 
book  of  unprejudiced  truth  expanded  for  all  to  read ;  —  these  are 
they  by  whom  these  auspices  are  to  be  accomplished.  Yes,  breth- 
ren, it  is  by  the  intellect  of  the  country  that  the  mighty  mass  is 
to  be  inspired,  that  its  parts  are  to  communicate  and  sympathize, 
its  bright  progress  to  be  adorned  with  becoming  refinements,  its 
strong  sense  uttered,  its  character  reflected,  its  feelings  interpreted 
to  its  own  children,  to  other  regions,  and  to  after  ages. 

Meantime,  the  years  are  rapidly  passing  away  and  gathering 
importance  in  their  course.  With  the  present  year  will  be  com- 
pleted the  half  century  from  that  most  important  era  in  human 
history,  the  commencement  of  our  Revolutionary  War.  The 
jubilee  of  our  national  existence  is  at  hand. 

The  space  of  time  that  has  elapsed  from  that  momentous  date, 
has  laid  down  in  the  dust,  which  the  blood  of  many  of  them  had 
already  hallowed,  most  of  the  great  men  to  whom,  under  Providence, 
we  owe  our  national  existence  and  privileges.  A  few  still  survive 
among  us  to  reap  the  rich  fruits  of  their  labors  and  sufferings ; 
and  one  has  yielded  himself  to  the  united  voice  of  a  people,  and 
returned  in  his  age  to  receive  the  gratitude  of  the  nation  to  whom, 
he  devoted  his  youth. 

Welcome,  friend  of  our  fathers,  to  our  shores !  Happy  are  our 
eyes  that  behold  those  venerable  features.  Enjoy  a  triumph,  such 
as  never  conqueror  or  monarch  enjoyed,  —  the  assurance  that 
throughout  America  there  is  not  a  bosom  which  does  not  beat  with 
joy  and  gratitude  at  the  sound  of  your  name.  You  have  already 
met  and  saluted,  or  will  soon  meet,  the  few  that  remain  of  the 
ardent  patriots,  prudent  counsellors,  and  brave  warriors,  with 
whom  you  were  associated  in  achieving  our  liberty.  But  you 
have  looked  round  in  vain  for  the  faces  of  many  who  would  have 
*  lived  years  of  pleasure  on  a  day  like  this  with  their  old  companion 
in  arms  and  brother  in  peril.  Lincoln,  and  Greene,  and  Knox, 
and  Hamilton,  are  gone-;  the  heroes  of  Saratoga  and  Yorktown 
have  Mien  before  the  only  foe  they  could  not  meet.  Above  all, 
the  first  of  heroes  and  of  men,  the  friend  of  your  youth,  the  more 


sPBCniExa  of 


than  friend  of  his  country,  rests  iu  the  bosom  of  the  soil  he 
redeemed.  On  the  banks  of  his  Potomac  he  lies  in  glory  and 
peace.  You  will  revisit  the  hospitable  shades  of  Mount  Vernon, 
but  him  whom  you  venerated  as  we  did,  you  will  not  meet  at  its 
door.  His  voice  of  consolation,  which  reached  you  in  the  Austrian 
dungeons,  cannot  now  break  its  silence,  to  bid  you  welcome  to  his 
own  roof.  But  the  grateful  children  of  America  will  bid  you 
welcome,  in  his  name.  Welcome,  thrice  welcome  to  our  shores ! 
and  whithersoever  throughout  the  limits  of  the  continent  your 
course  shall  take  you,  the  ear  that  hears  you  shall  bless  you,  the 
eye  that  sees  you  shall  bear  witness  to  you,  and  every  tongue 
exolaim,  with  heartfelt  joy,  Welcome,  welcome,  Lafayette ! 


NORTHERN  LABORERS.  —  C.  C.  Nayhr. 

The  gentleman  has  misconceived  tta  spirit  and  tendency  of 
northern  institutions.  He  is  ignorant  of  northern  character.  He 
has  forgotten  the  history  of  his  country.  Preach  insurrection  to 
the  northern  laborers!  Who  are  the  northern  laborers?  The 
history  of  your  country  is  their  history.  The  renown  of  your 
country  is  their  renown.  The  brightness  of  their  doings  is  embla- 
zoned on  its  every  page.  Blot  from  your  annals  the  deeds  and  the 
doings  of  northern  laborers,  and  the  history  of  your  country  pre- 
sents but  a  universal  blank. 

Who  was  he  that  disarmed  the  thunderer ;  wrested  from  his 
grasp  the  bolts  of  Jove ;  calmed  the  troubled  ocean ;  became  the 
central  sun  of  the  philosophical  system  of  his  age,  shedding  his 
brightness  and  effulgence  on  the  whole  civilized  world ;  whom  the 
great  and  mighty  of  the  earth  delighted  to  honor ;  who  partici- 
pated in  the  achievement  of  your  independence;  prominently 
assisted  in  moulding  your  free  institutions,  and  the  beneficial  effects* 
of  whose  wisdom  will  be  felt  to  the  last  moment  of "  recorded 
time  "  ?  Who,  I  ask,  was  he  ?  A  northern  laborer,  a  Yankee 
tallow-chandler's  son,  a  printer's  runaway  boy ! 

And  who,  let  ma  ask  the  honorable  gentleman,  who  was  he  that, 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


149 


in  the  days  of  our  Revolution,  led  forth  a  northern  army,  —  yes, 
an  army  of  northern  laborers,  —  and  aided  the  chivalry  of  South 
Carolina  in  their  defence  against  British  aggression,  drove' the 
spoilers  from  their  firesides,  and  redeemed  her  fair  fields  from 
foreign  invaders  ?  Who  was  he  ?  A  northern  laborer,  a  Rhode 
Island  blacksmith,  —  the  gallant  General  Greene,  — who  left  his 
hammer  and  his  forge,  and  went  forth  conquering  and  to  conquer 
in  the  battle  for  our  independence !  And  will  you  preach  insur- 
rection to  men  like  these  ? 

Our  country  is  full  of  the  achievements  of  northern  laborers  ! 
Where  are  Concord,  and  Lexington,  and  Princeton,  and  Trenton, 
and  Saratoga,  and  Bunker  Hill,  but  in  the  north  ?  And  what  has 
saed  an  imperishable  renown  on  the  never-dying  names  of  those 
hallowed  spots,  but  the  blood  and  the  struggles,  the  high  daring 
and  patriotism,  and  sublime  courage,  of  northern  laborers  ?  The 
whole  north  is  an  everlasting  monument  of  the  freedom,  virtue, 
intelligence,  and  indomitable  independence  of  northern  laborers  ! 
Go,  preach  insurrection  to  men  like  these ! 

The  fortitude  of  the  men  of  the  north,  under  intense  suffering 
for  liberty's  sake,  has  been  almost  godlike !  History  has  so 
recorded  it.  Who  comprised  that  gallant  army,  that,  without 
food,  without  pay,  shelterless,  shoeless,  penniless,  and  almost 
naked,  in  that  dreadful  winter,  — the  midnight  of  our  Revolution, 
—  whose  wanderings  could  be  traced  by  their  blood-tracks  in  the 
snow,  whom  no  arts  could  seduce,  no  appeal  lead  astray,  no  suffer- 
ings disaffect,  but  who,  true  to  their  country  and  its  holy  cause, 
continued  to  fight  the  good  fight  of  liberty,  until  it  finally  tri- 
umphed ?    Who  were  these  men  ?    Why,  northern  laborers  ! 


THE  MILITIA  OF  THE  REVOLUTION.  —  H.  Hubbard. 

No  body  of  troops  were  more  patriotic,  no  men  were  more  ardent 
in  the  prosecution  of  the  war  of  the  Revolution,  no  men  in  the 
public  service  endured  more  or  suffered  more,  no  men  were  clothed 
less,  fed  'less,  or  paid  less  than  they  were.    In  every  point  of  view 

13* 


150 


SPECIMENS  OF 


they  have  as  strong  claims  upon  the  justice  and  gratitude  of  the 
country  as  any  of  the  surviving  soldiers  of  the  Revolution. 

The  peculiar  services  and  sacrifices  of  the  militia  during  the  war 
of  the  Revolution  give  to  that  class  a  powerful  claim  upon  the 
justice  of  the  common  country.  For  these  services,  for  these  sac- 
rifices, they  could  not  have  been  paid.  The  debt  is  yet  due ;  it 
still  remains  unsatisfied ;  and,  on  every  consideration,  the  militia 
are  equally  well  entitled  to  the  benefit  of  the  pension  system  as 
any  other  class  of  revolutionary  soldiers. 

It  was  the  pure  patriotism,  it  was  the  unwavering  devotion  to 
the  best  interests  of  the  republic,  it  was  the  virtue  and  the  valor 
of  the  militia,  that  gave  to  our  cause  an  impulse  which  was  irre- 
sistible, an  impulse  which  the  whole  physical  force  of  England, 
aided  by  her  subsidized  Hessians,  proved  wholly  incompetent  to 
control  and  to  vanquish. 

The  battles  of  Lexington,  Concord,  Bunker  Hill,  taught  the 
enemy  that  the  soil  of  freemen  could  not  be  invaded  with  impu- 
nity, that  the  spirit  of  freemen  could  never  be  subdued  by  skill 
however  consummate,  by  force  however  powerful.  The  enemy  then 
saw  and  felt  too  much  not  to  believe  that  the  sacred  soil  of  freedom 
might  be  run  over,  but  could  not  be  conquered.  Were  it  neces- 
sary to  advert  to  events  to  show  forth  the  value  of  the  militia,  I 
would  direct  your  attention  to  every  great  battle  that  was  fought 
in  the  war  of  the  Revolution. 

At  the  north,  it  was  the  militia  that  gave  a  turn  to  our  hostile 
operations  which  inspired  confidence  in  the  cause  of  America.  The 
battle  of  Bennington,  under  the  brave  Stark,  of  my  own  state,  with 
his  regiments  of  militia,  after  a  series  of  disaster  and  defeat  had 
attended  the  army  in  Canada  and  upon  the  lakes,  served  to  ani- 
mate the  drooping  spirit  of  despondency,  to  fill  the  soul  of  patri- 
otism with  hope,  with  confidence,  with  courage. 

In  the  south  as  well  as  in  the  north  the  militia  of  the  country 
was  equally  distinguished  for  the  purity  of  its  patriotism  and  the 
ardor  of  its  zeal.  If  any  invidious  foe  to  our  country  has  cast 
imputations  upon  the  bravery  and  the  conduct  of  our  militia  at 
any  particular  period  of  that  war,  it  should  be  replied,  that  want 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


151 


of  discipline,  not  want  of  heroism,  subjected  our  militia,  in  certain 
memorable  battles,  to  great  disadvantages. 

There  was  no  cowardice,  no  treachery  in  the  composition  of  the 
militia.  In  every  battle  fought,  in  every  victory  won,  they  were 
breast  to  breast,  side  by  side,  with  state  and  continental  troops. 
When  the  enemy  of  the  country  cried  "  havoc,  and  let  slip  the  dogs 
of  war,"  the  militia  came  forth  in  their  might.  All  the  battles  of 
1775,  before  a  regular  army  could  have  been  organized,  — of  Lex- 
ington, of  Bunker  Hill,  of  Ticonderoga,  of  St.  John's  and  of  Nor- 
folk, —  evince  the  most  unwavering  courage  and  conduct.  If  a 
doubt  could  be  supposed  to  exist  as  to  the  value  of  the  militia  ser- 
vice in  the  war  of  the  Revolution,  I  would  refer  to  the  battles 
of  Fort  Moultrie,  of  Bennington,  of  Saratoga,  of  Long  Island,  of 
Trenton,  of  Germantown,  and  of  Yorktown.  These  engagements 
speak  a  language  which  cannot  be  mistaken,  and  which  will  not 
be  forgotten. 

We  are  now  happy  at  home,  enjoying  every  blessing  which  can 
pertain  to  freemen.  We  are  respected  abroad,  participating  in 
every  right  guaranteed  to  the  most  honored  nation.  We  cannot 
fail  to  realize  that  every  interest  of  our  beloved  country  is  most 
prosperous.  Every  citizen  in  this  great  republic  is  made  secure  in 
the  enjoyment  of  all  his  rights,  by  the  moral  influence  of  our  free 
institutions.  How  wonderful  have  been  the  practical  effects  of  the 
American  Revolution  !  How  great  has  been  the  advance  of  our 
general  population,  the  march  of  improvement,  the  progress  of  the 
arts  !  Our  extended  and  extending  West  comes  forth  in  all  her 
majesty,  in  all  her  physical  and  moral  power,  to  bear  evidence  to 
the  wondering  world  of  the  great  and  glorious  fruits  of  the  Rev- 
olution. The  cause  of  learning,  the  pure  spirit  of  Christianity, 
trace  their  astonishing  advancement  to  the  impulse  received  in  that 
eventful  period.  The  science  of  self-government,  the  free  institu- 
tions of  our  land,  rest  upon  a  deep  and  enduring  foundation,  laid 
in  the  war  of  the  Revolution.  In  every  latitude,  in  every  region, 
in  every  part  of  Christendom,  are  to  be  found  the  effects  of  Amer- 
ican genius,  American  enterprise,  and  of  American  industry. 

And  while  we  contemplate  the  universal  prosperity  and  happi- 


152 


SPECIMENS  OF 


ness  which  pervade  our  land,  can  we  fail  to  take  a  retrospect,  and 
bring  to  mind  by  whose  efforts  and  energies,  by  whose  services  and 
sacrifices,  these  invaluable  blessings  have  been  secured  ?  In  the 
dark  days  of  the  Revolution  our  beloved  country  was  poor,  of  lim- 
ited resources,  little  able  to  fulfil  to  the  letter  her  engagements; 
her  soldiers  were  neither  fed  nor  clothed  nor  paid  according  to  the 
stipulations  of  the  government ;  the  general  currency  of  the  coun- 
try was  greatly  depreciated.  These  unfailing  friends  could  not 
at  such  a  time  have  received  their  honest,  their  jusfc  demands. 

Nevertheless,  their  devotion  to  her  cause  suffered  no  change. 
Through  good  report  and  through  evil  report,  in  her  prosperity 
and  in  her  adversity,  they  went  for  their  country,  and  for  nothing 
but  their  country. 

Let  us  then  unite  with  one  mind  and  with  one  heart  to  effect  a 
satisfactory  payment  of  this  debt,  —  a  debt  which  we  should  most 
willingly  admit,  a  debt  which  our  country  is  now  well  able  satis- 
factorily to  discharge.  And  shall  we  stop,  the  descendants  of  our 
revolutionary  fathers,  the  children  of  the  patriots  of  that  day ; 
shall  we,  freemen,  the  native  sons  of  the  soil,  stop  to  calculate  the 
dollars  and  cents,  the  pounds  and  the  pence,  which  the  passage  of 
this  bill  may  annually  draw  from  our  treasury  ?  God  forbid !  I 
would  have  never  entered  upon  any  such  inglorious  work,  had  it 
not  been  time  and  again  reiterated,  that  the  passage  of  such  a 
bill  as  this  would  impoverish  our  country,  bring  ruin  upon  our 
republic.  I  would  pass  this  bill,  were  I  certain  that  the  conse- 
quent exaction  upon  me  would  require  the  surrender  of  the  better 
half  of  my  estate.  I  would  then  have  left  the  consolation  that  the 
claims  of  our  revolutionary  patriots  had  been  satisfied,  without 
whose  triumphant  efforts  everything  here  would  have  been  value- 
less ;  political  rights  and  political  privileges  would  have  been  any- 
thing but  political  blessings. 

The  surviving  soldiers  of  the  Revolution  have  already  passed 
that  boundary  which  has  been  assigned  by  high  authority  as  the 
duration  of  human  existence.  If  by  reason  of  their  strength  they 
should  continue  until  fourscore  years,  yet  will  their  strength  be 
labor  and  sorrow.    They  must  be  soon  cut  off ;  their  places  will 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


153 


soon  know  th  )m  no  more  forever.  The  day  of  their  departure 
must  be  at  hand ;  their  years  must  be  nearly  numbered.  I  would 
then  most  solemnly  urge  this  committee  not  to  delay  the  passage 
of  this  bill ;  and  my  fervent  prayer  to  the  Father  of  the  faithful 
would  be,  that  many  may  long  live  to  enjoy  its  benefits ;  that  they 
may  be  induced  to  call  around  them  their  children  and  their  chil- 
dren's children,  and  by  one  more  patriotic  effort  rivet  their  affec- 
tions still  stronger  to  the  republic,  by  pointing  out  to  them  thi3 
act  of  the  justice  and  the  gratitude  of  their  beloved  country. 


THE  FAMINE  IX  IRELAND.  —      5.  Prentiss. 

There  lies  upon  the  other  side  of  the  wide  Atlantic  a  beautiful 
island,  famous  in  story  and  in  song.  It  has  given  to  the  world 
more  than  its  share  of  genius  and  of  greatness.  It  has  been  prolific 
in  statesmen,  warriors,  and  poets.  Its  brave  and  generous  sons 
have  fought  successfully  in  all  battles  but  its  own.  In  wit  and 
humor  it  has  no  equal ;  while  its  harp,  like  its  history,  moves  to 
tears  by  its  sweet  but  melancholy  pathos.  In  this  fair  region  God 
has  seen  fit  to  send  the  most  terrible  of  all  those  fearful  ministers 
who  fulfil  his  inscrutable  decrees.  The  earth  has  failed  to  give 
her  increase ;  the  common  mother  has  forgotten  her  offspring, 
and  her  breast  no  longer  affords  them  their  accustomed  nourish- 

o 

ment.  Famine,  gaunt  and  ghastly  famine,  has  seized  a  nation 
with  its  strangling  grasp ;  and  unhappy  Ireland,  in  the  sad  woes 
of  the  present,  forgets,  for  a  moment,  the  gloomy  history  of  the 
past. 

In  battle,  in  the  fulness  of  his  pride  and  strength,  little  recks 
the  soldier  whether  the  hissing  bullet  sing  his  sudden  requiem,  or 
the  cords  of  life  are  severed  by  the  sharp  steel.  But  he  who  dies 
of  hunger,  wrestles  alone,  day  after  day,  with  his  grim  and  unre- 
lenting enemy.  He  has  no  friends  to  cheer  him  in  the  terrible 
conflict ;  for  if  he  had  friends  how  could  he  die  of  hunger  ?  He 
has  not  the  \  ot  blood  of  the  soldier  to  maintain  him ;  for  his  foe, 
vampire-like,  has  exhausted  his  veins. 


154 


SPECIMENS  OP 


Who  will  hesitate  to  give  his  mite,  to  avert  such  awful  results 
Give,  then,  generously  and  freely.  Recollect  that  in  so  doing  you 
are  exercising  one  of  the  most  godlike  qualities  of  your  nature, 
and  at  the  same  time  enjoying  one  of  the  greatest  luxuries  of  life. 
We  ought  to  thank  our  Maker  that  he  has  permitted  us  to  exercise 
equally  with  himself  that  noblest  of  even  the  Divine  attributes  — 
benevolence.  Go  home  and  look  at  your  family,  smiling  in  rosy 
health,  and  then  think  of  the  pale,  famine-pinched  cheeks  of  the 
poor  children  of  Ireland ;  and  you  will  give,  according  to  your 
store,  even  as  a  bountiful  Providence  has  given  to  you,  —  not 
grudgingly,  but  with  an  open  hand ;  for  the  quality  of  benevo- 
lence, like  that  of  mercy, 

"  Is  not  strained ; 
It  droppeth  like  the  gentle  rain  from  heaven 
Upon  the  place  beneath.    It  is  twice  blessed; 
It  blesses  him  that  gives,  and  him  that  takes." 


CLASSICAL  STUDIES  —  /  Story. 

There  is  not  a  single  nation,  from  the  north  to  the  south  of 
Europe,  from  the  bleak  shores  of  the  Baltic  to  the  bright  plains 
of  immortal  Italy,  whose  literature  is  not  imbedded  in  the  very 
elements  of  classical  learning.  The  literature  of  England  is,  in  an 
emphatic  sense,  the  production  of  her  scholars ;  of  men  who  have 
cultivated  letters  in  her  universities,  and  colleges,  and  grammar- 
schools  ;  of  men  who  thought  any  life  too  short,  chiefly  because  it 
left  some  relic  of  antiquity  unmastered,  and  any  other  fame  hum- 
ble, because  it  faded  in  the  presence  of  Roman  and  Grecian  genius. 
He  who  studies  English  literature  without  the  lights  of  classical 
learning,  loses  ha.f  the  charms  of  its  sentiments  and  style,  of  its 
force  and  feelings,  of  its  delicate  touches,  of  its  delightful  allusions, 
of  its  illustrative  associations.  Who,  that  reads  the  poetry  of 
Gray,  does  not  feel  that  it  is  the  refinement  of  classical  taste  which 
gives  such  inexpressible  vividness  and  transparency  to  his  diction  ? 
Who,  that  reads  the  concentrated  sense  and  melodious  versification 
of  Dryden  and  Pope,  does  not  perceive  in  them  the  disciples  of  the 


amkrk  an  f.i,  >qi;i:n<  e. 


155 


old  school,  whose  genius  was  inflamed  by  the  heroic  verse,  the  terse 
satire,  and  the  playful  wit  of  antiquity  ?  Who,  that  meditates 
over  the  strains  of  Milton,  does  not  feel  that  he  drank  deep  at 

**  Siloa's  brook,  that  flowed 
Fast  by  the  oracle  of  God  "  — 

that  the  fires  of  his  magnificent  mind  were  lighted  by  coals  from 
ancient  altars  ? 

It  is  no  exaggeration  to  declare,  that  he  who  proposes  to  abolish 
classical  studies  proposes  to  render,  in  a  great  measure,  inert  and 
unedifying  the  mass  of  English  literature  for  three  centuries ;  to 
rob  us  of  the  glory  of  the  past,  and  much  of  the  instruction  of 
future  ages ;  to  blind  us  to  excellences  which  few  may  hope  to 
equal,  and  none  to  surpass ;  to  annihilate  associations  which  are 
interwoven  with  our  best  sentiments,  and  give  to  distant  times  and 
countries  a  presence  and  reality  as  if  they  were  in  fact  his  own. 


THE  FREEDOM  OF  SCIEXCE  EN"  AMERICA.  —  G.  C.  Verplanck. 

The  quick  and  keen  sense  of  self-interest,  that  gives  such  sagac- 
ity and  energy  to  the  business  operations  of  this  country,  is  equally 
propitious  to  the  success  of  every  art,  every  discovery,  invention, 
undertaking,  and  science,  that  involves  in  it  any  amount  of  prac- 
tical improvement  or  power.  Hence,  whatever  of  theoretical 
science,  inventive  skill,  ingenious  speculation,  or  reasoning  elo- 
quence, can  be  made  to  tell  upon  any  of  the  multitudinous  affairs 
making  up  the  business  of  life,  or  to  minister  in  any  way  to  the 
increased  power  or  enjoyment  of  man,  will  soon  find  ready  atten- 
tion for  their  claims.  Here  no  prejudices  in  favor  of  time-honored 
usages  are  strong  enough  long  to  resist  the  advance  of  scientific 
improvement  or  wise  innovation.  Society  is  not  divided  into 
castes,  each  one  of  them  watching  with  jealous  vigilance  against 
any  encroachment  of  their  several  exclusive  walks  by  any  rude 
intruder  from  another  class,  themselves  clinging  to  the  settled 
usages  and  old  forms  of  their  own  clan,  with  the  steady  pertinacity 


156 


SPECIMENS  OF 


of  men  whose  unexamined  prejudices  are  interwoven  with  their 
earliest  habits  and  their  most  valuable  personal  interests.  If  Sci- 
ence, descending  from  her  starry  throne  in  the  heavens,  light  the 
student  to  any  discovery  or  invention  in  any  manner  applicable  to 
the  wants  of  his  fellow-creatures,  —  if  Genius  prompt  the  lofty 
thought, — 'if  love  of  God  or  of  man  inspire  the  generous  design, 
no  matter  how  the  novelty  may  astonish  for  the  moment,  no  mat- 
ter what  prejudices  may  be  shocked,  no  matter  what  interests  may 
be  alarmed  and  band  themselves  against  the  innovator,  let  him  go 
on  undismayed,  —  he  advances  to  certain  victory. 


WAR  WITH  FRAXCE.  —  /.  C.  Calhoun. 

The  first  thing  that  strikes  me,  sir,  in  casting  my  eyes  to  the 
future,  is  the  utter  impossibility  that  war,  should  there  unfortu- 
nately be  one,  can  have  an  honorable  termination.  The  capacity 
of  France  to  inflict  injury  upon  us  is  ten  times  greater  than  ours  to 
inflict  injuries  on  her;  while  the  cost  of  the  war,  in  proportion  to 
her  means,  would  be  in  nearly  the  same  proportion  less  than  ours 
to  our  means.  She  has  relatively  a  small  commerce  to  be  destroyed, 
while  we  have  the  largest  in  the  world,  in  proportion  to  our  capital 
and  population.  She  may  threaten  and  harass  our  coast,  while 
her  own  is  safe  from  assault.  I  do  not  hesitate  to  pronounce  that 
a  war  with  France  will  be  among  the  greatest  calamities,  — greater 
than  a  war  with  England  herself.  The  power  of  the  latter  to 
annoy  us  may  be  greater  than  that  of  the  former ;  but  so  is  ours, 
in  turn,  greater  to  annoy  England  than  France.  Nothing  can  be 
more  destructive  to  our  commerce  and  navigation  than  for  England 
to  be  neutral  while  we  are  belligerent  in  a  contest  with  such  a 
country  as  France.  The  whole  of  our  commercial  marine,  with 
our  entire  shipping,  would  pass  almost  instantly  into  the  hands  of 
England.  With  the  exception  of  our  public  armed  vessels,  there 
would  be  scarcely  a  flag  of  ours  afloat  on  the  ocean.  We  grew 
rich  by  being  neutral  while  England  was  belligerent.  It  was  that 
which  so  suddenly  built  up  the  mighty  fabric  of  our  prosperity  and 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


157 


greatness.  Reverse  the  position :  let  England  be  neutral  while 
we  are  belligerent,  and  the  sources  of  our  wealth  and  prosperity 
would  be  speedily  exhausted. 

In  a  just  and  necessary  war,  all  these  consequences  ought  to  be 
fearlessly  met.  Though  a  friend  to  peace,  when  a  proper  occasion 
occurs  I  would  be  among  the  last  to  dread  the  consequences  of 
war.  I  think  the  wealth,  and  blood  of  a  country  are  well  poured 
out  in  maintaining  a  just,  honorable,  and  necessary  war ;  but,  in 
such  a  war  as  that  with  which  the  country  is  now  threatened,  —  a 
mere  war  of  etiquette,  —  a  war  turning  on  a  question  so  trivial  as 
whether  an  explanation  shall  or  shall  not  be  given,  —  no,  whether 
it  has  or  has  not  been  given  (for  that  is  the  real  point  on  which 
the  controversy  turns),  —  to  put  in  jeopardy  the  lives  and  property 
of  our  citizens,  and  the  liberty  and  institutions  of  our  country,  is 
worse  than  folly,  —  is  madness.  I  say  the  liberty  and  institutions 
of  the  country.  I  hold  them  to  be  in  imminent  danger.  Such 
has  been  the  grasp  of  executive  power,  that  we  have  not  been  able 
to  resist  its  usurpations,  even  in  a  period  of  peace ;  and  how  much 
less  shall  we  be  able,  with  the  vast  increase  of  power  and  patronage 
which  a  war  must  confer  on  that  department  ?  In  a  sound  condi- 
tion of  the  country,  with  our  institutions  in  their  full  vigor,  and 
every  department  confined  to  its  proper  sphere,  we  would  have 
nothing  to  fear  from  a  war  with  France,  or  any  other  power  ;  but 
our  system  is  deeply  diseased,  and  we  may  fear  the  worst  in  being 
involved  in  a  war  at  such  a  juncture. 


THE  SURVIVORS  OF  THE  REVOLUTION.  —  E.  Everett. 

Let  us  not  forget  the  men  who,  when  the  conflict  of  counsel  was 
over,  stood  forward  in  that  of  arms ;  yet  let  me  not,  by  faintly 
endeavoring  to  sketch,  do  deep  injustice  to  the  story  of  their 
exploits.  The  efforts  of  a  life  would  scarce  suffice  to  paint  out 
this  picture  in  all  its  astonishing  incidents,  in  all  its  mingled  colors 
of  sublimity  and  woe,  of  agony  and  triumph. 

But  the  age  of  commemoration  is  at  hand.  The  voice  of  our 
14 


.58 


SPECIMENS  OF 


fathers'  blood  begins  to  cry  to  us  from  beneath  the  scil  which  it 
moistened.  Time  is  bringing  forward,  in  their  proper  relief,  the 
men  and  the  deeds  of  that  high-souled  day.  The  generation  of 
contemporary  worthies  is  gone ;  the  crowd  of  the  unsignalized 
great  and  good  disappears ;  and  the  leaders  in  war  as  well  as  coun- 
cil are  seen,  in  Fancy's  eye,  to  take  their  stations  on  the  mount  of 
remembrance. 

They  come  from  the  embattled  cliffs  of  Abraham ;  they  start 
from  the  heaving  sods  of  Bunker's  Hill ;  they  gather  from  the 
blazing  lines  of  Saratoga  and  Yorktown,  from  the  blood-dyed 
waters  of  the  Brandywine,  from  the  dreary  snows  of  Valley  Forge, 
and  all  the  hard-fought  fields  of  the  war.  With  all  their  wounds 
and  all  their  honors,  they  rise  and  plead  with  us  for  their  brethren 
who  survive,  and  bid  us,  if  indeed  we  cherish  the  memory  of  those 
who  bled  in  our  cause,  to  show  our  gratitude,  not  by  sounding 
words,  but  by  stretching  out  the  strong  arm  of  the  country's  pros- 
perity to  help  the  veteran  survivors  gmtly  down  to  their  graves. 


AGRICULTURE  AXD  COMMERCE.  —  /.  5.  Buckminster. 

No  situation  in  life  is  so  favorable  to  established  habits  of  virtue, 
and  to  powerful  seutiments  of  devotion,  as  a  residence  in  the  coun- 
try, and  rural  occupations.  I  am  not  speaking  of  a  condition  of 
peasantry,  of  which  in  this  country  we  know  little,  who  are  mere 
vassals  of  an  absent  lord,  or  the  hired  laborers  of  an  intendant,  and 
who  are,  therefore,  interested  in  nothing  but  the  regular  receipt 
of  their  daily  wages ;  but  I  refer  to  the  honorable  character  of  an 
owner  of  the  soil,  whose  comforts,  whose  weight  in  the  community, 
and  whose  very  existence  depend  upon  his  personal  labors,  and  the 
regular  returns  of  abundance  from  the  soil  which  he  cultivates. 
No  man,  one  would  think,  would  feel  so  sensibly  his  immediate 
dependence  upon  God,  as  the  husbandman.  For  all  his  peculiar 
blessings,  he  is  invited  to  look  immediately  to  the  bounty  of 
Heaven.  No  secondary  cause  stands  between  him  and  his  Maker. 
To  him  are  essential  the  regular  succession  of  the  seasons,  and  the 


AMEBIC  AN  ELOQUENCE. 


159 


timely  fall  of  the  rain,  the  genial  warmth  of  the  sun,  the  sure  pro- 
ductiveness of  the  soil,  and  the  certain  operations  of  those  laws  of 
nature  which  must  appear  to  him  nothing  less  than  the  varied 
exertions  of  omnipresent  energy.  In  the  country,  we  seem  to 
stand  in  the  midst  of  the  great  theatre  of  God's  power,  and  we 
feel  an  unusual  proximity  to  our  Creator.  His  blue  and  tranquil 
sky  spreads  itself  over  our  heads,  and  we  acknowledge  the  intru- 
sion of  no  secondary  agent  in  unfolding  this  vast  expanse.  Nothing 
but  Omnipotence  can  work  up  the  dark  horrors  of  the  tempest,  dart 
the  flashes  of  the  lightning,  and  roll  the  long-resounding  rumor  of 
the  thunder.  The  breeze  wafts  to  his  senses  the  odors  of  God's 
beneficence;  the  voice  of  God's  power  is  heard  in  the  rustling  of 
the  forest ;  and  the  varied  forms  of  life,  activity  and  pleasure, 
which  he  observes  at  every  step  in  the  fields,  lead  him  irresistibly, 
one  would  think,  to  the  source  of  being  and  beauty  and  joy.  How 
auspicious  such  a  life  to  the  noble  sentiments  of  devotion  !  Besides, 
the  situation  of  the  husbandman  is  peculiarly  favorable,  it  should 
seem,  to  purity  and  simplicity  of  moral  sentiment.  He  is  brought 
acquainted,  chiefly,  with  the  real  and  native  wants  of  mankind. 
Employed  solely  in  bringing  food  out  of  the  earth,  he  is  not  liable 
to  be  fascinated  with  the  fictitious  pleasures,  the  unnatural  wants, 
the  fashionable  follies  and  tyrannical  vices  of  more  busy  and  splen- 
did life. 

Still  more  favorable  to  the  religious  character  of  the  husband- 
man is  the  circumstance,  that,  from  the  nature  of  agricultural  pur- 
suits, they  do  not  so  completely  engross  the  attention  as  other 
occupations.  They  leave  much  time  for  contemplation,  for  read- 
ing, and  intellectual  pleasures ;  and  these  are  peculiarly  grateful 
to  the  resident  in  the  country.  Especially  does  the  institution  of 
the  Sabbath  discover  all  its  value  to  the  tiller  of  the  earth,  whose 
fatigue  it  solaces,  whose  hard  labors  it  interrupts,  and  who  feels  on 
that  day  the  worth  of  his  moral  nature,  which  cannot  be  under- 
stood by  the  busy  man,  who  considers  the  repose  of  this  day  as 
interfering  with  his  hopes  of  gain,  or  professional  employments.  If, 
then,  this  institution  is  of  any  moral  and  religious  value,  it  is  to 
the  country  we  must  look  for  the  continuance  of  that  respect  and 


160 


SPECIMENS  OF 


observance  which  it  merits.  My  friends,  —  those  of  you  especially 
who  retire  annually  into  the  country,  —  let  these  periodical  retreats 
from  business  or  dissipation  bring  you  nearer  to  your  God ;  let 
them  restore  the  clearness  of  your  judgment  on  the  objects  of 
human  pursuits,  invigorate  your  moral  perceptions,  exalt  your  sen- 
timents, and  regulate  your  habits  of  devotion  ;  and  if  there  be  any 
virtue  or  simplicity  remaining  in  rural  life,  let  them  never  be 
impaired  by  the  influence  of  your  presence  and  example. 

After  what  we  have  now  said  upon  the  virtuous  and  devotional 
tendency  of  a  country  life,  it  may,  perhaps,  be  considered  as  incon- 
sistent, or  even  paradoxical,  to  place  our  commercial  character 
among  our  moral,  much  less  our  religious  advantages.  But  let  it 
be  considered,  whatever  be  the  influence  of  traffic  upon  the  per- 
sonal worth  of  some  of  those  who  are  engaged  in  it,  its  intrinsic 
value  to  the  community,  and  its  kind  influence  upon  certain  parts 
of  the  moral  character,  are  not  to  be  disputed.  Hence  I  do  not 
scruple  to  state  it  as  one  of  our  great  national  distinctions,  which 
call  Yor  our  grateful  acknowledgments.  Tell  me  not  of  Tyre,  and 
Sidon,  and  Corinth,  and  Carthage.  I  know  they  were  commercial 
and  corrupt.  But  let  it  be  remembered  that  they  flourished  long 
before  the  true  principles  of  honorable  trade  were  understood; 
before  the  introduction  of  Christianity  had  given  any  stability  to 
those  virtues  of  conscientious  integrity,  and  strict  fidelity  in  trusts, 
which  are  now  indispensable  to  commercial  prosperity.  They  have 
passed  away,  it  is  true ;  and  so  has  Sparta,  where  no  commerce 
was  allowed ;  and  Judea,  though  mostly  agricultural,  is  known  no 
more,  except  for  its  national  ingratitude  and  corruption.  Besides, 
when  the  choice  of  a  nation  lies,  as,  from  the  present  state  of  the 
world,  it  appears  long  destined  to  lie,  between  a  commercial  and  a 
military  character,  surely  there  can  be  little  hesitation  about  the 
comparative  influence  of  the  peaceful  activity  of  trade,  though  it 
may  tend  to  enervate  some  of  the  energies  of  the  human  character, 
and  that  deplorable  activity  of  a  mere  warlike  nation,  where  plun- 
der is  the  ruling  passion  of  the  great,  and  destruction  the  trade  of 
the  small ;  where  every  new  conquest  tends  only  to  concentrate,  in 
still  fewer  hands,  the  wealth  of  kingdoms,  and  to  inspire  the  com- 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


161 


mon  people  with  an  undistinguishing  ferocity.  Surely,  we  canno^ 
hesitate  whether  to  prefer  that  warlike  state  of  a  nation  which 
poisons  at  once  the  sources  and  security  of  domestic  happiness,  —  a 
state  in  which  the  lives  as  well  as  the  virtues  of  mankind  sink 
into  objects  of  insignificant  importance,  —  or  that  commercial  situ- 
ation of  a*peop!e,  which  rouses  and  develops  all  the  powers  of  all 
classes  of  the  population,  which  gives  a  perpetual  spring  to  indus- 
try, and  which,  by  showing  every  man  how  completely  he  is 
dependent  upon  every  other  man,  makes  it  his  interest  to  promote 
the  prosperity,  to  consult  the  happiness,  and  to  maintain  the  peace, 
the  health,  and  the  security  of  the  millions  with  whom  he  is  con- 
nected. Surely,  that  state  of  a  people  cannot  be  unfavorable  to 
virtue,  which  provides  such  facilities  of  intellectual  communication 
between  the  remotest  regions,  so  that  not  a  bright  idea  can  spring 
up  in  the  brain  of  a  foreign  philosopher,  but  it  darts,  like  light- 
ning, across  the  Atlantic ;  not  an  improvement  obtains  in  the  con- 
dition of  one  society,  but  it  is  instantly  propagated  to  every  other. 
By  this  perpetual  interchange  of  thought,  and  this  active  diffusion 
of  understanding,  the  most  favorable  opportunities  are  afforded  for 
the  dissemination  of  useful  knowledge,  especially  for  the  extension 
of  that  most  precious  of  gifts,  the  gospel  of  Jesus.  I  need  not 
add,  that  the  wide  intercourse  we  are  keeping  up  with  foreign 
nations  ought  to  enlarge  the  sphere  of  our  intelligence,  liberalize 
our  sentiments  of  mankind,  polish  the  manners  of  the  community, 
and  introduce  courteousness  and  urbanity  of  deportment.  Mer- 
chants !  if  I  may  be  permitted  to  suggest  to  you  any  considerations 
on  the  value  of  your  order  to  the  community,  I  would  say,  that 
upon  your  personal  character  depends  much  of  these  favorable 
influences  of  commerce.  I  would  beg  you  to  beware  of  an  engross- 
ing love  of  profit,  which  invariably  narrows  the  capacity,  and 
debases  the  noblest  tendencies  of  the  human  character.  I  would 
persuade  you  to  cultivate  habits  of  mental  activity,  to  indulge 
enlarged  views  of  your  connection  with  mankind,  to  consider  your- 
selves as  forming  part  of  the  vast  chain  of  mutual  supports  and 
dependencies,  by  which  the  activity,  the  improvement  and  the 
pleasure  of  the  inhabitants  of  every  part  of  the  world  are  secured 
14* 


162 


SPECIMENS  OF 


and  promoted.  Above  all,  forget  not  that  you  are  instruments 
in  the  hands  of  Providence,  by  which  he  diffuses  his  blessings,  and 
promotes  his  grand  purposes  in  the  cultivation,  the  civilization,  and 
thus  the  moral  and  religious  advancement,  of  this  wide  creation. 
God  grant  that  you  may  never  feel  the  remorse  of  having  deliber- 
ately contributed  to  the  introduction  of  a  new  vice  into  the  commu- 
nity, or  to  the  corruption  of  an  old  or  established  principle ;  of 
having  aided  the  tyranny  of  a  worthless  fashion,  or  assisted  the 
gradual  encroachments  of  selfishness,  vanity,  pomp,  and  slavish 
imitation,  on  the  freedom  and  dignity  of  social  life ! 


THE  PRESERVATION  OF  THE  UNION.  —  L.  Cass. 

I  may  well  appeal  to  those  who  find  in  the  constitution  or  out 
of  the  constitution  this  power  to  control  the  territories,  whether  it 
is  a  power  that  ought  to  be  exercised  under  existing  circumstances. 
Here  is  one  half  of  a  great  country  which  believes,  with  a  unanim- 
ity perhaps  without  a  parallel  in  grave  national  questions,  that  the 
constitution  has  delegated  to  Congress  no  such  power  whatever. 
And  there  is  a  large  portion  of  the  other  half  which  entertains 
similar  views ;  while  of  those  who  see  in  the  constitution  sufficient 
grounds  for  legislative  action,  there  are  many  who  admit,  —  indeed, 
probably,  there  are  few  who  deny,  —  that  the  question  is  not  free 
from  serious  doubts. 

Besides  the  want  of  constitutional  power,  there  are  at  least  four- 
teen states  of  this  Union  which  see  in  this  measure  a  direct  attack 
upon  their  rights,  and  a  disregard  of  their  feelings  and  interests, 
as  injurious  in  itself  as  it  is  offensive  to  their  pride  of  character, 
and  incompatible  with  the  existence  of  those  bonds  of  amity  which 
are  stronger  than  constitutional  ties  to  hold  us  together.  No  man 
can  shut  his  eyes  to  the  excitement  which  prevails  there,  and 
which  is  borne  to  us  by  the  press  in  countless  articles  coming 
from  legislative  proceedings,  from  popular  assemblies,  and  from  all 
the  sources  whence  public  opinion  is  derived,  and  be  insensible  to 
the  evil  day  that  is  upon  us.    I  believe  this  Union  will  survive  all 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


163 


the  dangers  with  which  it  may  be  menaced,  however  trying  the 
circumstances  in  which  it  may  be  placed.  I  believe  it  is  not  des- 
tined to  perish  till  long  after  it  shall  have  fulfilled  the  great  mis- 
sion confided  to  it,  of  example  and  encouragement  to  the  nations 
of  the  earth  who  are  struggling  with  the  despotism  of  centuries, 
and  groping  their  way  in  a  darkness  once  impenetrable,  but  where 
the  light  of  knowledge  and  freedom  is  beginning  to  disperse  the 
gloom.  But  to  maintain  this  proud  position,  this  integrity  of  polit- 
ical existence,  on  which  so  much  for  us  and  for  the  world  depends, 
we  must  carefully  avoid  those  sectional  questions  so  much  and  so 
forcibly  deprecated  by  the  father  of  his  country,  and,  cultivating  a 
spirit  of  mutual  regard,  adding  to  the  considerations  of  interest 
which  hold  us  together  the  higher  motives  of  affection  and  of 
affinity  of  views  and  of  sympathies.  Sad  will  be  the  day  when 
the  first  drop  of  blood  is  shed  in  the  preservation  of  this  Union. 
That  day  need  never  come,  and  never  will  come,  if  the  same  spirit 
of  compromise  and  concession  by  each  to  the  feelings  of  all,  which 
animated  our  fathers,  continues  to  animate  us  and  our  children. 
But  if  powers  offensive  to  one  portion  of  the  country,  and  of  doubt- 
ful obligation,  to  say  the  least  of  it,  are  to  be  exercised  by  another, 
and  under  circumstances  of  peculiar  excitement,  this  confederation 
may  be  rent  in  twain,  leaving  another  example  of  that  judicial 
blindness  with  which  God,  in  his  providence,  sometimes  visits  the 
sins  of  nations. 


A  REPUBLIC  THE  STRONGEST  GOVERNMENT.  —  T.  Jefferson. 

During  the  throes  and  convulsions  of  the  ancient  world,  —  dur- 
ing the  agonizing  spasms  of  infuriated  man,  seeking,  through  blood 
md  slaughter,  his  long-lost  liberty,  —  it  was  not  wonderful  that 
:he  agitation  of  the  billows  should  reach  even  this  distant  and 
peaceful  shore;  that  this  should  be  more  felt  and  feared  by 
;orae,  and  less  by  others,  and  should  divide  opinions  as  to  meas- 
ures of  safety.  But  every  difference  of  opinion  is  not  a  difference 
)f  principle.  We  have  caLed  by  different  names  brethren  of  the 
same  principle.    We  are  all  Republicans ;  we  are  all  Federalists. 


164  SPECIMENS  OP 

If  there  be  any  among  us  who  would  w^sh  to  dissolve  this  Union, 
or  to  change  its  republican  form,  let  them  stand,  undisturbed,  as 
monuments  of  the  safety  with  which  error  of  opinion  may  be  toler- 
ated where  reason  is  left  free  to  combat  it.  I  know,  indeed,  that 
some  honest  men  fear  a  republican  government  cannot  be  strong, 

—  that  this  government  is  not  strong  enough.  But  would  the 
honest  patriot,  in  the  full  tide  of  successful  experiment,  abandon  a 
government  which  has  so  far  kept  us  free  and  firm,  on  the  theoretic 
and  visionary  fear  that  this  government,  the  world's  best  hope, 
may,  by  possibility,  want  energy  to  preserve  itself?  I  trust  not. 
I  believe  this,  on  the  contrary,  the  strongest  government  on  earth 
I  believe  it  the  only  one  where  every  man,  at  the  call  of  the  law 
would  fly  to  the  standard  of  the  law,  and  would  meet  invasions  of 
the  public  order,  as  his  own  personal  concern.  Sometimes  it  i: 
said  that  man  cannot  be  trusted  with  the  government  of  himself 
Can  he,  then,  be  trusted  with  the  government  of  others  ?  Or  have 
we  found  angels,  in  the  form  of  kings,  to  govern  him  ?  Let  his 
tory  answer  this  question. 

Let  us,  then,  with  courage  and  confidence,  pursue  our  own  fed 
eral  and  republican  principles,  —  our  attachment  to  union  and  rep  I 
resentative  government.    Kindly  separated,  by  nature  and  a  wid 
ocean,  from  the  exterminating  havoc  of  one  quarter  of  the  globe 

—  too  high-minded  to  endure  the  degradations  of  the  others,  — 
possessing  a  chosen  country,  with  room  enough  for  our  descendant 
to  the  thousandth  and  thousandth  generation,  —  entertaining  a  du 
sense  of  our  equal  right  to  the  use  of  our  own  faculties,  to  th  J 
acquisitions  of  our  own  industry,  to  honor  and  confidence  from  ou  1 
fellow-citizens,  resulting  not  from  birth,  but  from  our  actions,  ani 
their  sense  of  them,  —  enlightened  by  a  benign  religion,  professed 
indeed,  and  practised  in  various  forms,  yet  all  of  them  inculcatin 
honesty,  truth,  temperance,  gratitude,  and  the  love  of  man,- 
acknowledging  and  adoring  an  overruling  Providence,  which,  b 
all  its  dispensations,  proves  that  it  delights  in  the  happiness  o 
man  here,  and  his  greater  happiness  hereafter ;  with  all  these  bles;  I 
ings,  what  more  is  necessary,  to  make  us  a  happy  and  prosperoi  i 
people  ? 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


165 


Still  one  thifg  more,  fellow-citizens:  a  wise  and  frugal  govern- 
ment, which  shall  restrain  men  from  injuring  one  another,  shall 
leave  them  otherwise  free  to  regulate  their  own  pursuits  of  industry 
and  improvement,  and  shall  not  take  from  the  mouth  of  labor  the 
bread  it  has  earned.  This  is  the  sum  of  good  government ;  and 
this  is  necessary  to  close  the  circle  of  our  felicities. 


THE  INFLUENCE  OF  FREE  INSTITUTIONS  ENNOBLING.  —  G.  C. 

Verplanck. 

It  has  been  said  by  shrewd  though  unfriendly  observers,  that  in 
America  the  practical  and  the  profitable  swallow  up  every  other 
thought.  There,  say  they,  fancy  withers,  art  languishes,  taste 
expires ;  there  the  mind  looks  only  to  the  material  and  the  mechan- 
ical, and  loses  its  capacity  for  the  ideal  and  the  abstract.  But 
while  the  intelligent  American  citizen  is  surrounded  by  the  strong- 
est temptations  to  devote  himself  solely  to  selfish  pursuits,  he  is 
at  the  same  time  everywhere  invited  to  conform  his  own  spirit  to 
that  of  our  liberal  institutions,  and  instructed  to  uplift  his  mind  to 
the  consideration  of  large  principles,  and  to  regard  himself  as 
being  but  a  small  part  of  the  vast  whole  which  claims  his  best 
affections. 

With  such  a  choice  before  him,  pitiable  indeed  is  the  lot  of  him 
who  turns  from  the  nobler  and  manlier  side,  to  think,  to  live,  and 

•  to  drudge,  for  himself  alone.     He  cuts  himself  off  from  the 

•  best  delights  of  the  heart,  its  endearing  charities  and  its  elevating 
sympathies.  He  paralyzes  his  own  intellect  by  suffering  it  to 
oecome  half  dead  through  inaction,  and  that  in  its  nobler  parts. 
The  mighty  ladder  of  thought  and  reason,  reaching  from  the  visible 
:o  the  invisible,  —  from  the  crude  knowledge  gained  through  the 
senses  to  the  sublimest  inferences  of  the  pure  reason,  —  from  the 
garth  to  the  very  footstool  of  God's  own  throne,  —  is  before  him, 
md  invites  his  ascent.  But  he  bends  his  eyes  obstinately  down- 
wards upon  the  glittering  ores  at  his  feet,  until  he  loses  the  wish 
)r  the  hope  for  anything  better. 


16G  SPECIMENS  05" 

That  such  grovelling  materiality,  such  mean  selfishness,  is  not 
the  necessary,  nor  the  constant,  no,  nor  the  frequent  result  of  our 
ardent  industry  in  the  affairs  of  life,  let  the  discoveries  of  Frank- 
lin, and  the  magnificent  far-drawn  speculations  of  Edwards,  —  let 
the  grand  philosophy  and  the  poetic  thought,  flashing  quick  and 
thick  through  the  cloudy  atmosphere  of  political  discussion  in  our 
senate-house,  —  let  the  open-handed  charity,  the  more  than  princely 
munificence,  the  untiring  personal  labors  of  benevolence,  exhibited 
by  our  most  devoted  and  successful  men  of  business,  bear  splendid 
testimony. 


LIBERTY.  —  E.  P.  Whipple. 

To  the  Anglo-Saxon  mind,  liberty  is  not  apt  to  be  the  enthu- 
siast's mountain  nymph,  with  cheeks  wet  with  morning  dew,  and 
clear  eyes  that  mirror  the  heavens;  but  rather  is  she  an  old 
dowager  lady,  fatly  invested  in  commerce  and  manufactures,  and 
peevishly  fearful  that  enthusiasm  will  reduce  her  establishment, 
and  panics  cut  off  her  dividends.  Now,  the  moment  property 
becomes  timid,  agrarianism  becomes  bold ;  and  the  industry  which 
liberty  has  created  liberty  must  animate,  or  it  will  be  plundered 
by  the  impudent  and  rapacious  idleness  its  slavish  fears  incite. 

Our  political  institutions,  again,  are  but  the  body  of  which 
liberty  is  the  soul ;  their  preservation  depends  on  their  being  con- 
tinually inspired  by  the  light  and  heat  of  the  sentiment  and  idea 
whence  they  sprung;  and  when  we  timorously  suspend,  according 
to  the  latest  political  fashion,  the  truest  and  dearest  maxims  of  our 
freedom  at  the  call  of  expediency  or  threat  of  passion,  —  when  we 
convert  politics  into  a  mere  game  of  interests,  unhallowed  by  a 
single  great  and  unselfish  principle,  —  we  may  be  sure  that  our 
worst  passions  are  busy  "  forging  our  fetters ; "  that  we  are  propos- 
ing all  those  intricate  problems  which  red  republicanism  so  swiftly 
solves,  and  giving  manifest  destiny  pertinent  hints  to  shout  new 
anthems  of  atheism  over  victorious  rapine. 

The  liberty  which  our  fathers  planted,  and  for  which  they  stur- 
dily contended,  and  under  which  they  grandly  conquered,  is  a 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


167 


rational  and  temperate  but  brave  and  unyielding  freedom,  the 
august  mother  of  institutions,  the  hardy  nurse  of  enterprise,  the 
sworn  ally  of  justice  and  order ;  a  liberty  that  lifts  her  awful  and 
rebuking  face  equally  upon  the  cowards  who  would  sell,  and  the 
braggarts  who  would  pervert,  her  precious  gifts  of  rights  and  obli- 
gations. And  this  liberty  we  are  solemnly  bound  at  all  hazards  to 
protect,  at  any  sacrifice  to  preserve,  and  by  all  just  means  to 
extend,  against  the  unbridled  excesses  of  that  ugly  and  brazen  hag, 
originally  scorned  and  detested  by  those  who  unwisely  gave  her 
infancy  a  home,  but  which  now,  in  her  enormous  growth  and 
favored  deformity,  reels,  with  blood-shot  eyes,  and  dishevelled 
tresses,  and  words  of  unshamed  slavishness,  into  halls  where  Lib- 
erty should  sit  enthroned ! 


PUBLIC  VIRTUE.  —  H.  Clay. 

I  hope,  that  in  all  that  relates  to  personal  firmness,  all  that  con- 
cerns a  just  appreciation  of  the  insignificance  of  human  life,  — 
whatever  may  be  attempted  to  threaten  or  alarm  a  soul  not  easily 
swayed  by  opposition,  or  awed  or  intimidated  by  menace,  —  a  stout 
heart  and  a  steady  eye,  that  can  survey,  unmoved  and  undaunted, 
any  mere  personal  perils  that  assail  this  poor,  transient,  perishing 
frame,  I  may,  without  disparagement,  compare  with  other  men. 
But  there  is  a  sort  of  courage,  which,  I  frankly  confess  it,  I  do  not 
possess,  —  a  boldness  to  which  I  dare  not  aspire,  a  valor  which  I 
cannot  covet.  I  cannot  lay  myself  down  in  the  way  of  the  wel- 
fare and  happiness  of  my  country.  That  I  cannot,  I  have  not  the 
courage  to  do.  I  cannot  interpose  the  power  with  which  I  may  be 
invested  —  a  power  conferred,  not  for  my  personal  benefit,  nor  for 
my  aggrandizement,  but  for  my  country's  good  —  to  check  her 
onward  march  to  greatness  and  glory.  I  have  not  courage  enough, 
I  am  too  cowardly,  for  that.  I  would  not,  I  dare  not,  in  the  exer- 
cise of  such  a  trust,  lie  down,  and  place  my  body  across  the  path 
that  leads  my  country  to  prosperity  and  happiness.  This  is  a  sort 
of  courage  widely  different  from  that  which  a  man  may  display  in 


168 


SPECIMENS  OP 


his  private  conduct  and  personal  relations.  Personal  or  private 
courage  is  totally  distinct  from  that  higher  and  nobler  courage 
which  prompts  the  patriot  to  offer  himself  a  voluntary  sacrifice  to 
his  country's  good.  Apprehensions  of  the  imputation  of  the  want 
of  firmness  sometimes  impel  us  to  perform  rash  and  inconsiderate 
acts.  It  is  the  greatest  courage  to  be  able  to  bear  the  imputation 
of  the  want  of  courage.  But  pride,  vanity,  egotism,  so  unamiable 
and  offensive  in  private  life,  are  vices  which  partake  of  the  charac- 
ter of  crimes,  in  the  conduct  of  public  affairs.  The  unfortunate 
victim  of  these  passions  cannot  see  beyond  the  little,  petty,  con- 
temptible circle  of  his  own  personal  interests.  All  his  thoughts  are 
withdrawn  from  his  country,  and  concentrated  on  his  consistency, 
his  firmness,  himself.  The  high,  the  exalted,  the  sublime  emotions 
of  a  patriotism  which,  soaring  toward  heaven,  rises  far  above  all 
mean,  low,  or  selfish  things,  and  is  absorbed  by  one  soul-trans- 
porting thought  of  the  good  and  the  glory  of  one's  country,  are 
never  felt  in  his  impenetrable  bosom.  That  patriotism  which, 
catching  its  inspirations  from  the  immortal  God,  and  leaving  at  an 
immeasurable  distance  below  all  lesser,  grovelling,  personal  inter- 
ests and  feelings,  animates  and  prompts  to  deeds  of  self-sacrifice,  of 
valor,  of  devotion,  and  of  death  itself,  —  that  is  public  virtue ;  that 
is  the  noblest,  the  sublimest,  of  all  public  virtues ! 


HOWARD,  THE  PHILANTHROPIST.  —  F.  Wayland. 

It  is  not  in  the  field  of  patriotism  alone  that  deeds  have  been 
achieved  to  which  history  has  awarded  the  palm  of  moral  sub- 
limity. There  have  lived  men  in  whom  the  name  of  patriot  has 
been  merged  in  that  of  philanthropist ;  who,  looking  with  an  eye 
of  compassion  over  the  face  of  the  earth,  have  felt  for  the  miseries 
of  our  race,  and  have  put  forth  their  calm  might  to  wipe  off  one 
blot  from  the  marred  and  stained  escutcheon  of  human  nature,  to 
strike  off  one  form  of  suffering  from  the  catalogue  of  human  woe. 
Such  a  man  was  Howard.  Surveying  our  world  like  a  spirit  of 
the  blessed,  he  beheld  the  misery  of  the  captive,  he  heard  the 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


169 


groaning  of  the  prisoner.  His  determination  was  fixed.  He 
resolved,  single-handed,  to  gauge  and  to  measure  one  form  of 
unpitied,  unheeded  wretchedness,  and,  bringing  it  out  to  the  sun- 
shine of  public  observation,  to  work  its  utter  extermination.  And 
he  well  knew  what  this  undertaking  would  cost  him.  He  knew 
what  he  had  to  hazard  from  the  infection  of  dungeons,  to  endure 
from  the  fatigues  of  inhospitable  travel,  and  to  brook  from  the 
insolence  of  legalized  oppression.  He  knew  that  he  was  devoting 
himself  to  the  altar  of  philanthropy;  and  he  willingly  devoted 
himself.  He  had  marked  out  his  destiny,  and  he  hastened  forward 
to  its  accomplishment,  with  an  intensity  "  which  the  nature  of  the 
human  mind  forbade  to  be  more,  and  the  character  of  the  indi- 
vidual forbade  to  be  less."  Thus  he  commenced  a  new  era  in  the 
history  of  benevolence.  And  hence  the  name  of  Howard  will  be 
associated  with  all  that  is  sublime  in  mercy,  until  the  final  con- 
summation of  all  things. 


THE  LAND  OF  OUR  FATHERS.  —  E.  Everett. 

What  American  does  not  feel  proud  that  he  is  descended  from 
the  countrymen  of  Bacon,  of  Newton,  and  of  Locke  ?  Who  does 
not  know,  that  while  every  pulse  of  civil  liberty  in  the  heart  of 
the  British  empire  beat  warm  and  full  in  the  bosom  of  our  fathers, 
the  sobriety,  the  firmness  and  the  dignity,  with  which  the  cause 
of  free  principles  struggled  into  existence  here,  constantly  found 
encouragement  and  countenance  from  the  sons  of  liberty  there  ? 
Who  does  not  remember  that  when  the  Pilgrims  went  over  the 
sea,  the  prayers  of  the  faithful  British  confessors,  in  all  the  quar- 
ters of  their  dispersion,  went  over  with  them,  while  their  aching 
eyes  were  strained,  till  the  star  of  hope  should  go  up  in  the  west- 
ern skies  ?  And  who  will  ever  forget  that  in  that  eventful  struggle 
which  severed  this  mighty  empire  from  the  British  crown,  there 
was  not  heard,  throughout  our  continent  in  arms,  a  voice  which 
spoke  louder  for  the  rights  of  America  than  that  of  Burke,  or  of 
Chatham,  within  the  walls  of  the  British  Parliament,  and  at  the 
15 


170  SPECIMENS  01-' 

foot  of  the  British  throne  ?  No  !  for  myself  I  can  truly  say,  that 
after  my  native  land,  I  feel  a  tenderness  and  a  reverence  for  that 
of  my  lathers.  The  pride  I  take  in  my  own  country  makes  me 
respect  that  from  which  we  are  sprung. 

In  touching  the  soil  of  England,  I  seem  to  return  like  a  descend- 
ant to  the  old  family  seat,  — to  come  back  to  the  abode  of  an  aged, 
the  tomb  of  a  departed  parent.  I  acknowledge  this  great  consan- 
guinity of  nations.  The  sound  of  my  native  language,  beyond  the 
sea,  is  a  music  to  my  car  beyond  the  richest  strains  of  Tuscan  soft- 
ness, or  Castilian  majesty.  I  am  not  yet  in  a  land  of  strangers, 
while  surrounded  by  the  manners,  the  habits,  the  forms  in  which 
I  have  been  brought  up.  I  wander  delighted  through  a  thousand 
scenes  which  the  historians,  the  poets,  have  made  familiar  to  us,  — 
of  which  the  names  are  interwoven  with  our  earliest  associations. 
I  tread  with  reverence  the  spot  where  I  can  retrace  the  footsteps 
of  our  Buffering  fathers ;  the  pleasant  land  of  their  birth  has  a 
claim  on  my  heart.  It  seems  to  me  a  classic,  yea,  a  holy  land, 
rich  in  the  memories  of  the  great  and  good  ;  the  martyrs  of  lib- 
erty, the  exiled  heralds  of  truth ;  and  richer,  as  the  parent  of  this 
land  of  promise  in  the  west. 

I  am  not,  I  need  not  say  I  am  not,  the  panegyrist  of  England. 
I  am  not  dazzled  by  her  riches,  nor  awed  by  her  power.  The 
sceptre,  the  mitre  and  the  coronet,  stars,  garters  and  blue  ribbons, 
seem  to  me  poor  things  for  great  men  to  contend  for.  Nor  is  my 
admiration  awakened  by  her  armies,  mustered  for  the  battles  of 
Europe ;  her  navies,  overshadowing  the  ocean ;  nor  her  empire, 
grasping  the  furthest  East.  It  is  these,  and  the  price  of  guilt  and 
blood  by  which  they  are  maintained,  which  are  the  cause  why  no 
friend  of  liberty  can  salute  her  with  undivided  affections.  But  it 
is  the  refuge  of  free  principles,  though  often  persecuted ;  the 
school  of  religious  liberty,  the  more  precious  for  the  struggles  to 
which  it  has  been  called ;  the  tomb  of  those  who  have  reflected 
honor  on  all  who  speak  the  English  tongue  ;  it  is  the  birthplace 
of  our  fathers,  the  home  of  the  Pilgrims ;  —  it  is  these  which  I 
love  and  venerate  in  England.  I  should  feel  ashamed  of  an  enthu- 
siasm for  Italy  and  Greece,  did  I  not  also  feel  it  for  a  land  like 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


173 


this.  In  an  American  it  would  seem  to  me  degenerate  and 
ungrateful  to  hang  with  passion  upon  the  traces  of  Homer  and 
Virgil,  and  follow  without  emotion  the  nearer  and  plainer  footsteps 
of  Shakspeare  and  Milton  ;  and  I  should  think  him  cold  in  his 
love  for  his  native  land,  who  felt  no  melting  in  his  heart  for  that 
other  native  land,  which  holds  the  ashes  of  his  forefathers. 


THE  DIGNITY  OF  HUMAN  NATURE.  —  O.  Dewey. 

You  are  a  man ;  you  are  a  rational  and  religious  being ;  you 
are  an  immortal  creature.  Yes,  a  glad  and  glorious  existence  is 
yours :  your  eye  is  opened  to  the  lovely  and  majestic  vision  of 
nature  ;  the  paths  of  knowledge  are  around  you,  and  they  stretch 
onward  to  eternity  ;  and,  most  of  all,  the  glory  of  the  infinite  God, 
the  all-perfect,  all-wise,  and  all-beautiful,  is  unfolded  to  you. 
What,  now,  compared  with  this,  is  a  little  worldly  renown  ?  The 
treasures  of  infinity  and  of  eternity  are  heaped  upon  thy  laboring 
thought ;  —  can  that  thought  be  deeply  occupied  with  questions  of 
mortal  prudence  ?  It  is  as  if  a  man  were  enriched  by  some  gener- 
ous benefactor  almost  beyond  measure,  and  should  find  nothing  else 
to  do  but  vex  himself  and  complain,  because  another  man  was 
made  a  few  thousands  richer. 

Where,  unreasonable  complainer,  dost  thou  stand,  and  what  is 
around  thee  ?  The  world  spreads  before  thee  its  sublime  myste- 
ries, where  the  thoughts  of  sages  lose  themselves  in  wonder;  the 
ocean  lifts  up  its  eternal  anthems  to  thine  ear ;  the  golden  sun 
lights  thy  path ;  the  wide  heavens  stretch  themselves  above  thee, 
and  worlds  rise  upon  worlds,  and  "systems  beyond  systems,  to  infin- 
ity ;  and  dost  thou  stand  in  the  centre  of  all  this,  to  complain  of 
thy  lot  and  place  ?  Pupil  of  th^t  infinite  teaching,  —  minister  at 
nature's  great  altar,  —  child  of  heaven's  favor,  —  ennobled  being, 
—  redeemed  creature,  —  must  thou  pine  in  sullen  and  envious 
melancholy,  amidst  the  plenitude  of  the  whole  creation  ? 

In  that  thou  art  a  man,  thou  art  infinitely  exalted  above  what 
any  man  can  be,  in  that  he  is  praised.    I  would  rather  be  the 


172 


SPECIMENS  OF 


humblest  man  in  the  world,  than  barely  be  thought  greater  than 
the  greatest.  The  beggar  is  greater,  as  a  man,  than  is  the  man, 
merely  as  a  king.  Not  one  of  the  crowds  that  listened  to  the  elo- 
quence of  Demosthenes  and  Cicero,  not  one  who  has  bent  with 
admiration  over  the  pages  of  Homer  and  Shakspeare,  not  one 
who  followed  in  the  train  of  Caesar  or  of  Napoleon,  would  part 
with  the  humblest  power  of  thought,  for  all  the  fame  that  is  echo- 
ing over  the  world  and  through  the  ages. 


THE  FIRST  BATTLE-GROUND  OF  THE  REVOLUTION.  —  R.  Choate. 

That  was  a  glorious  morning,  the  19th  of  April,  1775;  and 
wherein,  I  would  ask,  consisted  the  specific,  transcendent  glories 
of  that  day  ?  Wherein  lies  that  strange  charm  that  belongs  to 
everything  connected  with  this  place,  its  incidents  and  details  ? 
Why  is  it  that  our  hearts  grow  liquid,  and  that  we  can  pour  them 
out  like  water,  when  we  listen  again  to  that  old  story,  older  than 
the  words  of  our  mothers'  love,  needing  none  of  that  brilliant 
genius  which  had  that  day  touched  their  ears,  to  invest  them  with 
power  which  should  never  die  ? 

Why  is  it  so  pleasant  to  come  up  here  from  the  miserable  strifes 
and  bickerings  of  every-day  life,  to  dwell  and  worship  for  a  short 
space  of  time  in  such  charmed  presence  as  this  ?  What  is  it  that 
makes  the  specific,  transcendent  glory  of  the  day  ?  It  is  because  it 
was  an  event  so  rare,  so  strange,  so  ominous  of  good  or  evil  to  future 
generations  of  man.  It  was  from  these  instruments,  and  from 
these  flags,  borne  by  these  trembling  hands,  —  it  was  that  essence, 
so  subtile,  so  rare,  so  extensive,  s$  mysterious,  —  that  free  and  that 
stirring  spirit,  the  sentiment  of  American  nationality,  which  was 
first  breathed  into  the  life  of  tWis  people,  and  made  to  pour  itself 
through  and  about  the  body  of  the  people,  and  which  shall  last 
until  the  heavens  be  no  more. 

Let,  then,  the  events  of  which  we  are  reminded  by  these  scenes 
and  these  men  mark  the  strong  birth-love  of  the  American  people. 
On  that  day,  within  the  space  of  twelve  hours,  the  old  colonial 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


173 


party  passed  away,  like  a  scroll.  The  veil  of  the  first  temple  was 
that  day  rent  from  top  to  bottom.  That  day,  American  liberty 
was  then  and  there  born.  Our  aged  and  revered  friends  of  Con- 
cord, and  Lexington,  and  Acton,  of  Carlisle,  Sudbury  and  the  sur- 
rounding towns,  went  into  that  battle  British  colonists ;  the  bap- 
tism of  fire  was  laid  upon  their  charmed  brows,  and  they  rose  from 
their  knees  American  citizens !  The  flag  of  Massachusetts,  the 
pine-tree  flag,  that  old  flag,  was  carried  into  battle  in  the  morn- 
ing ;  and  if  the  survivor  who  rolled  it  up  that  night  had  noticed 
it,  he  would  have  seen,  gleaming  through  a  blaze  of  light,  on  one 
side,  the  pine-tree  banker,  and,  on  the  other,  the  glorious  stars  and 
stripes ! 


DEDICATION  OF  THE  CEMETERY  AT  MOUNT  AUBURN.  —  /.  Story. 

Our  cemeteries,  rightly  selected  and  properly  arranged,  may  be 
made  subservient  to  some  of  the  highest  purposes  of  religion  and 
human  duty.  They  may  preach  lessons  to  which  none  may  refuse 
to  listen,  and  which  all  that  live  must  hear.  Truths  may  be  there 
felt  and  taught,  in  the  silence  of  our  own  meditations,  more  per- 
suasive and  more  enduring  than  ever  flowed  from  human  lips. 
The  grave  hath  a  voice  of  eloquence,  —  nay,  of  superhuman  elo- 
quence, —  which  speaks  at  once  to  the  thoughtlessness  of  the  rash, 
and  the  devotion  of  the  good ;  which  addresses  all  times,  and  all 
ages,  and  all  sexes ;  which  tells  of  wisdom  to  the  wise,  and  of 
comfort  to  the  afflicted ;  which  warns  us  of  our  follies  and  our 
dangers ;  which  whispers  to  us  in  accents  of  peace,  and  alarms  us 
in  tones  of  terror;  which  steals  with  a  healing  balm  into  the 
stricken  heart,  and  lifts  up  and  supports  the  broken  spirit ;  which 
awakens  a  new  enthusiasm  for  virtue,  and  disciplines  us  for  its 
severer  trials  and  duties ;  which  calls  up  the  images  of  the  illus- 
trious dead,  with  an  animating  presence  for  our  example  and 
glory;  and  which  demands  of  us,  as  men,  as  patriots,  as  Christians, 
as  immortals,  that  the  powers  given  by  God  should  be  devoted  to 
his  service,  and  the  minds  created  by  his  love  should  return  to  him 
15* 


174 


SPECIMENS  OF 


with  larger  capacities  for  virtuous  enjoyment,  and  with  more  spir- 
itual and  intellectual  brightness. 

A  rural  cemetery  seems  to  combine  in  itself  all  the  advantages 
which  can  be  proposed  to  gratify  human  feelings,  or  tranquillize 
human  fears ;  to  secure  the  best  religious  influences,  and  to  cherish 
all  those  associations  which  cast  a  cheerful  light  over  the  darkness 
of  the  grave. 

And  what  spot  can  be  more  appropriate  than  this,  for  such  a 
purpose  ?  Nature  seems  to  point  it  out  with  significant  energy,  as 
the  favorite  retirement  for  the  dead.  There  are  around  us  all  the 
varied  features  of  her  beauty  and  grandeur,  —  the  forest-crowned 
height,  the  abrupt  acclivity,  the  sheltered  valley,  the  deep  glen, 
the  grassy  glade,  and  the  silent  grove.  Here  are  the  lofty  oak, 
the  beech,  that  "  wreathes  its  old  fantastic  roots  so  high,"  the  rust- 
ling pine,  and  the  drooping  willow ;  the  tree  that  sheds  its  pale 
leaves  with  every  autumn,  a  fit  emblem  of  our  own  transitory 
bloom,  and  the  evergreen,  with  its  perennial  shoots,  instructing  us 
that  "the  wintry  blast  of  death  kills  not  the  .buds  of  virtue." 
Here  is  the  thick  shrubbery  to  protect  and  conceal  the  new-made 
grave  ;  and  there  is  the  wild-flower  creeping  along  the  narrow 
path,  and  planting  its  seeds  in  the  upturned  earth.  All  around 
us  there  breathes  a  solemn  calm,  as  if  we  were  in  the  bosom  of  a 
wilderness,  broken  only  by  the  breeze  as  it  murmurs  through  the 
tops  of  the  forest,  or  by  the  notes  of  the  warbler  pouring  forth  his 
matin  or  his  evening  sons;. 

Ascend  but  a  few  steps,  and  what  a  change  of  scenery  to  sur- 
prise and  delight  us !  We  seem,  as  it  were  in  an  instant,  to  pass 
from  the  confines  of  death  to  the  bright  and  balmy  regions  of  life ! 
Below  us  flows  the  winding  Charles,  with  its  rippling  current,  like 
the  stream  of  time  hastening  to  the  ocean  of  eternity !  In  the 
distance,  the  city  —  at  once  the  object  of  our  admiration  and  our 
love  —  rears  its  proud  eminences,  its  glittering  spires,  its  lofty 
towers,  its  graceful  mansions,  its  curling  smoke,  its  crowded  haunts 
of  business  and  pleasure,  which  speak  to  the  eye,  and  yet  leave  a 
noiseless  loneliness  on  the  ear.  Again  we  turn,  and  the  walls  of 
our  venerable  university  rise  before  us,  with  many  a  recollection 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


175 


of  happy  days  parsed  there  in  the  interchange  of  study  and  friend- 
ship, and  many  a  grateful  thought  of  the  affluence  of  its  learning, 
which  has  adorned  and  nourished  the  literature  of  ou\-  country. 
Again  we  turn,  and  the  cultivated  farm,  the  neat  cottage,  the  vil- 
lage church,  the  sparkling  lake,  the  rich  valley,  and  the  distant 
hills,  are  before  us  through  opening  vistas ;  and  we  breathe  amidst 
the  fresh  and  varied  labors  of  man.  * 

There  is,  therefore,  within  our  reach,  every  variety  of  natural 
and  artificial  scenery,  which  is  fitted  to  awaken  emotions  of  the 
highest  and  most  affecting  character.  We  stand,  as  it  were,  upon 
the  borders  of  two  worlds  ;  and,  as  the  mood  of  our  minds  may  be, 
we  may  gather  lessons  of  profound  wisdom  by  contrasting  the  one 
with  the  other,  or  indulge  in  the  dreams  of  hope  and  ambition,  or 
solace  our  hearts  by  melancholy  meditations. 

Within  the  flight  of  one  half-century,  how  many  of  the  great, 
the  good,  and  the  wise,  will  be  gathered  here !  How  many  in  the 
byeliaess  of  infancy,  the  beauty  of  youth,  the  vigor  of  manhood, 
and  the  maturity  of  age,  will  lie  down  here,  and  dwell  in  the  bosom 
of  their  mother  earth  !  The  rich  and  the  poor,  the  gay  and  the 
wretched,  the  favorites  of  thousands  and  the  forsaken  of  the  world, 
the  stranger  in  his  solitary  grave  and  the  patriarch  surrounded  by 
the  kindred  of  a  long  lineage !  How  many  will  here  bury  their 
brightest  hopes,  or  blasted  expectations !  How  many  bitter  tears 
will  here  be  shed !  How  many  agonizing  sighs  will  here  be 
heaved !  How  many  trembling  feet  will  cross  the  pathways,  and, 
returning,  leave  behind  them  the  dearest  objects  of  their  reverence 
or  their  love ! 

And  if  this  were  all,  sad,  indeed,  and  funereal,  would  be  our 
thoughts ;  gloomy,  indeed,  would  be  these  shades,  and  desolate 
these  prospects.  But,  thanks  be  to  God,  the  evils  which  he  per- 
mits have  their  attendant  mercies,  and  are  blessings  in  disguise. 
The  bruised  reed  will  not  be  laid  utterly  prostrate.  The  wounded 
heart  will  not  always  bleed.  The  voice  of  consolation  will  spring 
up  in  the  midst  of  the  silence  of  these  regions  of  death.  The 
mourner  will  revisit  these  shades  with  a  secret,  though  melancholy 
pleasure.    The  hand  of  friendship  will  delight  to  cherish  the 


176 


SPECIMENS  OV 


flowers  and  the  shrubs  that  fringe  the  lowly  grave  or  the  sculp- 
tured monument.  The  earliest  beams  of  the  morning  will  play 
upon  these  summits  with  a  refreshing  cheerfulness,  and  the  linger- 
ing tints  of  evening  hover  on  them  with  a  tranquillizing  glow. 
Spring  will  invite  thither  the  footsteps  of  the  young  by  its  opening 
foliage,  and  autumn  detain  the  contemplative  by  its  latest  bloom. 
The  votary  of  learning  and  science  will  here  learn  to  elevate  his 
genius  by  the  holiest  studies.  The  devout  will  here  offer  up  the 
silent  tribute  of  pity,  or  the  prayer  of  gratitude.  The  rivalries  of 
the  world  will  here  drop  from  the  heart ;  the  spirit  of  forgiveness 
will  gather  new  impulses;  the  selfishness  of  avarice  will  be 
checked ;  the  restlessness  of  ambition  will  be  rebuked ;  vanity  will 
let  fall  its  plumes ;  and  pride,  as  it  sees  "  what  shadows  we  are, 
and  what  shadows  we  pursue,"  will  acknowledge  the  value  of  vir- 
tue as  far,  immeasurably  far,  beyond  that  of  fame. 

But  that  which  will  be  ever  present,  pervading  these  shades  like 
the  noon-day  sun,  and  shedding  cheerfulness  around,  is  the  con- 
sciousness, the  irrepressible  consciousness,  amidst  all  these  lessons 
of  human  mortality,  of  the  higher  truth,  that  we  are  beings,  not  of 
time,  but  of  eternity ;  "  that  this  corruptible  must  put  on  incorrup- 
tion,  and  this  mortal  must  put  on  immortality ;  "  that  this  is  but 
the  threshold  and  starting  point  of  an  existence,  compared  with 
whose  duration  the  ocean  is  but  as  a  drop,  nay,  the  whole  creation 
an  evanescent  quality. 

Let  us  banish,  then,  the  thought  that  this  is  to  be  the  abode  of  a 
gloom  which  will  haunt  the  imagination  by  its  terrors,  o**  chill  the 
heart  by  its  solitude.  Let  us  cultivate  feelings  and  sentiments 
more  worthy  of  ourselves,  and  more  worthy  of  Christianity.  Here 
let  us  erect  the  memorials  of  our  love,  and  our  gratitude,  and  our 
glory.  Here  let  the  brave  repose,  who  have  died  in  the  cause  of 
their  country.  Here  let  the  statesman  rest,  who  has  achieved  the 
victories  of  peace,  not  less  renowned  than  war.  Here  let  genius 
find  a  home,  that  has  sung  immortal  strains,  or  has  instructed  with 
still  diviner  eloquence.  Here  let  learning  and  science,  the  votaries 
of  inventive  art,  and  the  teacher  of  the  philosophy  of  nature,  come. 
Here  let  youth  and  beauty,  blighted  by  premature  decay,  drop, 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


177 


jke  tender  blossoms,  into  the  virgin  earth ;  and  here  let  age  retire, 
ripened  for  the  harvest.  Above  all,  here  let  the  benefactors  of 
mankind,  the  good,  the  merciful,  the  meek,  the  pure  in  heart,  be 
congregated,  —  for  to  them  belongs  an  undying  praise ! 


THE  CONSTITUTION  NOT  AN  EXPERIMENT.  —  H.  S.  Legare. 

"We  are  told  that  our  constitution  —  the  constitution  of  the 
United  States  —  is  a  mere  experiment.  Sir,  I  deny  it  utterly ; 
and  he  that  says  so  shows  me  that  he  has  either  not  studied  at  all, 
or  studied  to  very  little  purpose,  the  history  and  genius  of  our 
institutions.  The  great  cause  of  their  prosperous  results  —  a  cause 
which  every  one  of  the  many  attempts  since  vainly  made  to  imitate 
them,  on  this  continent  or  in  Europe,  only  demonstrates  the  more 
Nearly  —  is  precisely  the  contrary.  It  is  because  our  fathers 
made  no  experiments,  and  had  no  experiments  to  make,  that  their 
work  has  stood.  They  were  forced,  by  a  violation  of  their  histor- 
cal,  hereditary  rights  under  the  old  common  law  of  their  race,  to 
lissolve  the  connection  with  the  mother  country.  But  the  whole 
constitution  of  society  in  the  states,  the  great  body  and  bulk  of 
heir  public  law,  with  all  its  maxims  and  principles,  —  in  short, 
il  that  is  republican  in  our  institutions,  —  remained,  after  the 
devolution,  and  remains  now,  with  some  very  subordinate  niodifi- 
ations,  what  it  was  from  the  beginning. 

Our  written  constitutions  do  nothing  but  consecrate  and  fortify 
he  "  plain  rules  of  ancient  liberty,"  handed  down  with  Magna 
Jharta,  from  the  earliest  history  of  our  race.  It  is  not  a  piece  of 
aper,  sir,  it  is  not  a  few  abstractions  engrossed  on  parchment,  that 
lake  free  governments.  No,  sir;  the  law  of  liberty  must  be 
iscribed  on  the  heart  of  the  citizen ;  the  word,  if  I  may  use  the 
spression  without  irreverence,  must  become  elesh.  You  must 
ave  a  whole  people  trained,  disciplined,  bred,  —  yea,  and  born,  — 
3  our  fathers  were,  to  institutions  like  ours.  Before  the  colonies 
dsted,  the  petition  of  rights,  that  Magna  Charta  of  a  more  enlight 
led  age,  had  been  presented,  in  1628,  by  Lord  Coke  and  his 


178 


SPECIMENS  OF 


immortal  compeers.  Our  founders  brought  it  with  them,  and  we 
have  not  gone  one  step  beyond  them.  They  brought  these  maxims 
of  civil  liberty,  not  in  their  libraries,  but  in  their  souls ;  not  as 
philosophical  prattle,  not  as  barren  generalities,  but  as  rules  of  con- 
duct ;  as  a  symbol  of  public  duty  and  private  right,  to  be  adhered 
to  with  religious  fidelity ;  and  the  very  first  pilgrim  that  set  his 
foot  upon  the  rock  of  Plymouth  stepped  forth  a  living  constitu- 
tion, armed  at  all  points  to  defend  and  to  perpetuate  the  liberty 
to  which  he  had  devoted  his  whole  being. 


MILITARY  QUALIFICATIONS  DISTINCT  FROM  CIVIL.  —  /.  Sergeant. 

It  has  been  maintained  that  the  genius  which  constitutes  a  great 
military  man  is  a  very  high  quality,  and  may  be  equally  useful  in 
the  cabinet  and  in  the  field ;  that  it  has  a  sort  of  universality 
equally  applicable  to  all  affairs.  We  have  seen,  undoubtedly, 
instances  of  a  rare  and  wonderful  combination  of  civil  and  military 
qualifications,  both  of  the  highest  order.  That  the  greatest  civil 
qualifications  may  be  found  united  with  the  highest  military  tal- 
ents, is  what  no  one  will  deny  who  thinks  of  Washington.  But 
that  such  a  combination  is  rare  and  extraordinary,  the  fame  of 
Washington  sufficiently  attests.  If  it  were  common,  why  was  he 
so  illustrious  ? 

I  would  ask,  what  did  Cromwell,  with  all  his  military  genius, 
do  for  England  ?  He  overthrew  the  monarchy,  and  he  established 
dictatorial  power  in  his  own  person.  And  what  happened  next  ? 
Another  soldier  overthrew  the  dictatorship,  and  restored  the  mon- 
archy. The  sword  effected  both.  Cromwell  made  one  revolution ; 
and  Monk  another.  And  what  did  the  people  of  England  gain  by 
it  ?  Nothing.  Absolutely  nothing  !  The  rights  and  liberties  of 
Englishmen,  as  they  now  exist,  were  settled  and  established  at  the 
revolution  in  1688.  Now,  mark  the  difference !  By  whom  was 
that  I  Bvolution  begun  and  conducted  ?  Was  it  by  soldiers  ?  by 
military  genius  ?  by  the  sword  ?  No  !  It  was  the  work  of  states- 
men and  of  eminent  lawyers,  —  men  never  distinguished  for  mffi- 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


179 


tary  exploits.  The  faculty  —  the  dormant  faculty  —  may  have 
existed.  That  is  what  no  one  can  affirm  or  deny.  But  it  would 
have  been  thought  an  absurd  and  extravagant  thing  to  propose,  in 
reliance  upon  this  possible  dormant  faculty,  that  one  of  those  emi- 
nent statesmen  and  lawyers  should  be  sent,  instead  of  the  Duke 
of  Marlborough,  to  command  the  English  forces  on  the  continent ! 

Who  achieved  the  freedom  and  the  independence  of  this  our  own 
country  ?  Washington  effected  much  in  the  field ;  but  where 
were  the  Franklins,  the  Adamses,  the  Hancocks,  the  Jeffersons, 
and  the  Lees,  —  the  band  of  sages  and  patriots,  whose  memory  we 
revere  ?  They  were  assembled  in  council.  The  heart  of  the  Rev- 
olution beat  in  the  hall  of  Congress.  There  was  the  power  which, 
beginning  with  appeals  to  the  king  and  to  the  British  nation,  at 
length  made  an  irresistible  appeal  to  the  world,  and  consummated 
the  Revolution  by  the  declaration  of  independence,  which  Wash- 
ington established  with  their  authority,  and,  bearing  their  commis- 
sion, supported  by  arms.  And  what  has  this  band  of  patriots,  of 
sages,  and  of  statesmen,  given  to  us  ?  Not  what  Ciesar  gave  to 
Rome;  not  what  Cromwell  gave  to  England,  or  Napoleon  to 
France  :  they  established  for  us  the  great  principles  of  civil,  polit- 
ical and  religious  liberty,  upon  the  strong  foundations  on  which 
they  have  hitherto  stood.  There  may  have  been  military  capacity 
in  Congress :  but  can  any  one  deny  that  it  is  to  the  wisdom  of  the 
sages,  Washington  being  oue,  we  are  indebted  for  the  signal  bless- 
ings we  enjoy  ? 


REMEMBRANCE  OF  THE  GOOD.  —  H.  Humphrey. 

Why  is  it  that  the  names  of  Howard,  and  Thornton,  and  Clark- 
son,  and  Wilberforce,  will  be  held  in  everlasting  remembrance  ? 
Is  it  not  chiefly  on  account  of  their  goodness,  their  Christian  phi- 
lanthropy, the  overflowing  and  inexhaustible  benevolence  of  their 
great  minds  ?  Such  men  feel  that  they  were  not  born  for  them- 
selves, nor  for  the  narrow  circle  of  their  kindred  and  acquaint- 
ances, but  for  the  world  and  for  posterity.  They  delight  in  doing 
good  on  a  great  scale.    Their  talents,  their  property,  their  time, 


180  ■         SPECIMENS  OF 

their  knowledge  and  experience  and  influence,  they  hold  in  con- 
stant requisition  for  the  benefit  of  the  poor,  the  oppressed,  and  the 
perishing.  You  may  trace  them  along  the  whole  pathway  of  life, 
by  the  blessings  which  they  scatter  far  and  wide.  They  may  be 
likened  to  yon  noble  river,  which  carries  gladness  and  fertility, 
from  state  to  state,  through  all  the  length  of  that  rejoicing  valley, 
which  it  was  made  to  bless  ;  —  or  to  those  summer  showers  which 
pour  gladness  and  plenty  over  all  the  regions  that  they  visit,  till 
they  melt  away  into  the  glorious  effulgence  of  the  setting  sun. 

Such  a  man  was  Howard,  the  prisoner's  friend.  Christian  phi- 
lanthropy was  the  element  in  which  he  lived  and  moved,  and  out 
of  which  life  would  have  been  intolerable.  It  was  to  him  that 
kings  listened  with  astonishment,  as  if  doubtful  from  what  world 
of  pure  disinterestedness  he  had  come.  To  him  despair  opened 
her  dungeons,  and  plague  and  pestilence  could  summon  no  terrors 
to  arrest  his  investigations.  In  his  presence,  crime,  though  girt 
with  the  iron  panoply  of  desperation,  stood  amazed  and  rebuked. 
With  him,  home  was  nothing,  country  was  nothing,  health  was 
nothing,  life  was  nothing.  His  first  and  last  question  was,  "  What 
is  the  utmost  that  I  can  do  for  degraded,  depraved,  bleeding 
humanity,  in  all  her  prison-houses  ?  "  And  what  wonders  did  he 
accomplish !  What  astonishing  changes  in  the  whole  system  of 
prison  discipline  may  be  traced  back  to  his  disclosures  and  sugges- 
tions, and  how  many  millions  yet  to  be  born  will  rise  up  and  call 
him  blessed !  Away,  all  ye  Caesars  and  Napoleons,  to  your  own 
dark  and  frightful  domains  of  slaughter  and  misery  !  Ye  can  no 
more  endure  the  light  of  such  a  godlike  presence  than  the  eye, 
already  inflamed  to  torture  by  dissipation,  can  look  the  sun  in  the 
face  at  noonday ! 


INFLUENCE  OF  AMERICA  UPON  MANKIND.  —  G.  C.  Verplanck. 

The  study  of  the  history  of  most  other  nations  fills  the  mind 
with  sentiments  not  unlike  those  which  the  American  traveller  feels 
on  entering  the  venerable  and  lofty  cathedral  of  some  proud  old 
city  of  Europe.    Its  solemn  grandeur,  its  vastness,  its  obscurity, 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


181 


strike  awe  to  his  heart.  From  the  richly-painted  windows,  filled 
with  sacred  emblems,  and  strange  antique  forms,  a  dim  religious 
light  falls  around.  A  thousand  recollections  of  romance,  and 
poetry,  and  legendary  story,  come  thronging  in  upon  him.  He  is 
surrounded  by  the  tombs  of  the  mighty  dead,  rich  with  the  labors 
of  ancient  art,  and  emblazoned  with  the  pomp  of  heraldry. 

What  names  does  he  read  upon  them  ?  Those  of  princes  and 
nobles  Avho  are  now  remembered  only  for  their  vices;  and  of 
sovereigns  at  whose  death  no  tears  were  shed,  and  whose  memories 
lived  not  an  hour  in  the  affections  of  their  people.  There,  too,  he 
sees  other  names,  long  familiar  to  him  for  their  guilty  or  ambigu- 
ous fame.  There  rest  the  blood-stained  soldier  of  fortune ;  the 
orator,  who  was  ever  the  ready  apologist  of  tyranny ;  great  scholars, 
who  were  the  pensioned  flatterers  of  power ;  and  poets,  who  pro- 
faned the  high  gift  of  genius  to  pamper  the  vices  of  a  corrupted 
court. 

Our  own  history,  on  the  contrary,  like  that  poetical  temple  of 
fame  reared  by  the  imagination  of  Chaucer,  and  decorated  by  the 
taste  of  Pope,  is  almost  exclusively  dedicated  to  the  memory  of  the 
truly  great.  Or,  rather,  like  the  Pantheon  of  Rome,  it  stands  in 
calm  and  severe  beauty  amid  the  ruins  of  ancient  magnificence  and 
"  the  toys  of  modern  state."  Within,  no  idle  ornament  encumbers 
its  bold  simplicity.  The  pure  light  of  heaven  enters  from  above, 
and  sheds  an  equal  and  serene  radiance  around.  As  the  eye  wan- 
ders about  its  extent,  it  beholds  the  unadorned  monuments  of  brave 
and  good  men  who  have  greatly  bled  or  toiled  for  their  country,  or 
it  rests  on  votive  tablets  inscribed  with  the  names  of  the  best  ben- 
efactors of  mankind. 

Doubtless  this  is  a  subject  upon  which  we  may  be  justly  proud. 
But  there  is  another  consideration,  which,  if  it  did  not  naturally 
arise  of  itself,  would  be  pressed  upon  us  by  the  taunts  of  European 
criticism. 

What  has  this  nation  done  to  repay  the  world  for  the  benefits 
we  have  received  from  others  ?    We  have  been  repeatedly  told, 
and  sometimes,  too,  in  a  tone  of  affected  impartiality,  that  the 
highest  praise  which  can  fairly  be  given  to  the  American  mind  is 
16 


1S2 


SPECIMENS  OF 


that  of  possessing  an  enlightened  selfishness ;  that  if  the  philos- 
ophy and  talents  of  this  country,  with  all  their  effects,  were  for- 
ever swept  into  oblivion,  the  loss  would  be  felt  only  by  ourselves ; 
and  that  if  to  the  accuracy  of  this  general  charge  the  labors  of 
Franklin  present  an  illustrious,  it  is  still  but  a  solitary,  exception. 

The  answer  may  be  given  confidently  and  triumphantly.  With- 
out abandoning  the  fame  of  our  eminent  men,  whom  Europe  has 
been  slow  and  reluctant  to  honor,  we  would  reply,  that  the  intel- 
lectual power  of  this  people  has  exerted  itself  in  conformity  to  the 
general  system  of  our  institutions  and  manners,  and,  therefore, 
that  for  the  proof  of  its  existence,  and  the  measure  of  its  force, 
we  must  look  not  so  much  to  the  works  of  prominent  individuals, 
as  to  the  great  aggregate  results ;  and  if  Europe  has  hitherto  been 
wilfully  blind  to  the  value  of  our  example  and  the  exploits  of  our 
sagacity,  courage,  invention  and  freedom,  the  blame  must  rest  with 
her,  and  not  with  America. 

Is  it  nothing  for  the  universal  good  of  mankind  to  have  carried 
into  successful  operation  a  system  of  self-government  uniting  per- 
sonal liberty,  freedom  of  opinion,  and  equality  of  rights,  with 
national  power  and  dignity  such  as  had  before  existed  only  in  the 
Utopian  dreams  of  philosophers  ?  Is  it  nothing,  in  moral  science, 
to  have  anticipated,  in  sober  reality,  numerous  plans  of  reform  in 
civil  and  criminal  jurisprudence,  which  are  but  now  received  as 
plausible  theories  by  the  politicians  and  economists  of  Europe  ?  Is 
it  nothing  to  have  been  able  to  call  forth  on  every  emergency, 
either  in  war  or  peace,  a  body  of  talents  always  equal  to  the  diffi- 
culty? Is  it  nothing  to  have,  in  less  than  half  a  century,  exceed- 
ingly improved  the  sciences  of  political  economy,  of  law,  and  of 
medicine,  with  all  their  auxiliary  branches;  to  have  enriched 
human  knowledge  by  the  accumulation  of  a  great  mass  of  useful 
fact  and  observations,  and  to  have  augmented  the  power  and  the 
comforts  of  civilized  man  by  miracles  of  mechanical  invention? 
Is  it  nothing  to  have  given  the  world  examples  of  disinterested 
patriotism,  of  political  wisdom,  of  public  virtue;  of  learning,  elo- 
quence and  valor,  never  exerted  save  for  some  praiseworthy  end  ? 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


183 


It  is  sufficient  to  have  briefly  suggested  these  considerations :  every 
mind  would  anticipate  me  in  filling  up  the  details. 

No,  land  of  liberty !  thy  children  have  no  cause  to  blush  for 
thee.  What  though  the  arts  have  reared  few  monuments  among 
us,  and  scarce  a  trace  of  the  Muse's  footstep  is  found  iu  the  paths 
of  our  forests,  or  along  the  banks  of  our  rivers,  —  yet  our  soil  has 
been  consecrated  by  the  blood  of  heroes,  and  by  great  and  holy 
deeds  of  peace !  Its  wide  extent  has  become  one  vast  temple  and 
hallowed  asylum,  sanctified  by  the  prayers  and  blessings  of  the  per- 
secuted of  every  sect,  and  the  wretched  of  all  nations. 


CENTENNIAL  BIRTHDAY  OF  WASHINGTON.  —  D.  Webster. 

We  are  met  to  testify  our  regard  for  him  whose  name  is  inti- 
mately blended  with  whatever  belongs  most  essentially  to  the  pros- 
perity, the  liberty,  the  free  institutions  and  the  renown,' of  our 
country.  That  name  was  of  power  to  rally  a  nation  in  the  hour 
of  thick-thronging  public  disasters  and  calamities ;  that  name- 
shone,  amid  the  storm  of  war,  a  beacon-light  to  cheer  and  guide 
the  country's  friends ;  it  flamed,  too,  like  a  meteor,  to  repel  her 
foes.  That  name,  in  the  days  of  peace,  was  a  loadstone,  attracting 
to  itself  a  whole  people's  confidence,  a  whole  people's  love,  and  the 
whole  world's  respect ;  that  name,  descending  with  all  time,  spread- 
ing over  the  whole  earth,  and  uttered  in  all  the  languages  belong- 
ing to  the  tribes  and  races  of  men,  will  forever  be  pronounced  with 
affectionate  gratitude  by  every  one  in  whose  breast  there  shall 
arise  an  aspiration  for  human  rights  and  human  liberty. 

A  true  friend  of  his  country  loves  her  friends  and  benefactors, 
and  thinks  it  no  degradation  to  commend  and  commemorate  them. 
The  voluntary  outpouring  of  the  public  feeling,  made  to-day,  from 
the  north  to  the  south,  and  from  the  east  to  the  west,  proves  this 
sentiment  to  be  both  just  and  natural.  In  the  cities  and  m  the 
villages,  in  the  public  temples  and  in  the  family  circles,  among  all 
ages  and  sexes,  gladdened  voices,  to-day,  bespeak  grateful  hearts, 
and  a  freshened  recollection  of  the  virtues  of  the  Father  of  his 


184 


SPECIMENS  OF 


Country.  And  it  will  be  so,  in  all  time  to  come,  so  long  as  public 
virtue  is  itself  an  object  of  regard.  The  ingenuous  youth  of 
America  will  hold  up  to  themselves  the  bright  model  of  Washing- 
ton's example,  and  study  to  be  what  they  behold ;  they  will  con- 
template his  character  till  all  its  virtues  spread  out  and  display 
themselves  to  their  delighted  vision ;  as  the  earliest  astronomers, 
the  shepherds  on  the  plains  of  Babylon,  gazed  at  the  stars  till  they 
saw  them  form  into  clusters  and  constellations,  overpowering  at 
length  the  eyes  of  the  beholders  with  the  united  blaze  of  a  thou- 
sand lights. 

We  are  at  the  point  of  a  century  from  the  birth  of  Washington ; 
and  what  a  century  it  has  been  !  During  its  course,  the  human 
mind  has  seemed  to  proceed  with  a  sort  of  geometric  velocity, 
accomplishing,  for  human  intelligence  and  human  freedom,  more 
than  had  been  done  in  fives  or  tens  of  centuries  preceding.  Wash- 
ington stands  at  the  commencement  of  a  new  era,  as  well  as  at  the 
head  of  the  new  world.  A  century  from  the  birth  of  Washington 
has  changed  the  world.  The  country  of  Washington  has  been  the 
theatre  on  which  a  great  part  of  that  change  has  been  wrought, 
and  Washington  himself  a  principal  agent  by  which  it  has  been 
accomplished.  His  age  and  his  country  are  equally  full  of  won- 
ders ;  and  of  both  he  is  the  chief. 

If  the  prediction  of  the  poet,  uttered  a  few  years  before  his 
birth,  be  true ;  if,  indeed,  it  be  designed  by  Providence  that  the 
grandest  exhibition  of  human  character  and  human  affairs  shall  be 
made  on  this  theatre  of  the  western  world ;  if  it  be  true  that, 

"  The  four  first  acts  already  past, 
A  fifth  shall  close  the  drama  with  the  day,  — 
Time's  noblest  offspring  is  the  last;" 

how  could  this  imposing,  swelling,  final  scene,  be  appropriately 
opened,  how  could  its  intense  interest  be  adequately  sustained,  but 
by  the  introduction  of  just  such  a  character  as  our  Washington? 

Washington  had  attained  his  manhood  when  that  spark  of  liberty 
was  struck  out  in  his  own  country,  which  has  since  kindled  into  a 
flame,  and  shot  its  beams  over  the  earth.  In  the  flow  of  a  century 
from  his  birth  the  world  has  changed  in  science,  in  arts,  in  the 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


185 


extent  of  commerce,  in  the  improvement  of  navigation,  and  in  all 
that  relates  to  the  civilization  of  man.  But  it  is  the  spirit  of 
human  freedom,  the  new  elevation  of  individual  man,  in  his  moral, 
social  and  political  character,  leading  the  whole  long  train  of  other 
improvements,  which  has  most  remarkably  distinguished  the  era. 

The  political  prosperity  which  this  country  has  attained,  and 
which  it  now  enjoys,  it  has  acquired  mainly  through  the  instru- 
mentality of  the  present  government.  While  this  agent  continues, 
the  capacity  of  attaining  to  still  higher  degrees  of  prosperity  exists 
also.  We  have,  while  this  lasts,  a  political  life,  capable  of  bene- 
ficial exertion,  with  power  to  resist  or  overcome  misfortunes,  to 
sustain  us  against  the  ordinary  accidents  of  human  affairs,  and  to 
promote,  by  active  efforts,  every  public  interest.  But  dismember- 
ment strikes  at  the  very  being  which  preserves  these  faculties.  It 
would  lay  its  rude  and  ruthless  hand  on  this  great  agent  itself.  It 
would  sweep  away,  not  only  what  we  possess,  but  all  power  of 
regaining  lost  or  acquiring  new  possessions.  It  would  leave  the 
country,  not  only  bereft  of  its  prosperity  and  happiness,  but  with- 
out limbs,  or  organs,  or  faculties,  by  which  to  exert  itself,  here- 
after, in  the  pursuit  of  that  prosperity  and  happiness. 

Other  misfortunes  may  be  borne,  or  their  effects  overcome.  If 
disastrous  war  should  sweep  our  commerce  from  the  ocean,  another 
generation  may  renew  it ;  if  it  exhaust  our  treasury,  future  indus- 
try may  replenish  it ;  if  it  desolate  and  lay  waste  our  fields,  still, 
under  a  new  cultivation,  they  will  grow  green  again,  and  ripen  to 
future  harvests.  It  were  but  a  trifle,  even  if  the  walls  of  yonder 
capitol  were  to  crumble,  if  its  lofty  pillars  should  fall,  and  its  gor- 
geous decorations  be  all  covered  by  the  dust  of  the  valley.  All 
these  might  be  rebuilt.  But  who  shall  re-construct  the  fabric  of 
demolished  government  ?  Who  shall  rear  again  the  well-propor- 
tioned columns  of  constitutional  liberty  ?  Who  shall  frame  together 
the  skilful  architecture  which  unites  national  sovereignty  with 
state  rights,  individual  security,  and  public  prosperity  ?  No !  if 
these  columns  fall,  they  will  be  raised  not  again.  Like  the 
Coliseum  and  the  Parthenon,  they  will  be  destined  to  a  mournful, 
a  melancholy  immortality.  Bitterer  tears,  however,  will  flow  over 
16* 


186 


SPECIMENS  OF 


them,  than  were  ever  shed  over  the  monuments  of  Roman  or 
Grecian  art;  for  they  will  be  the  remnants  of  a  more  glorious 
edifice  than  Greece  or  Home  ever  saw,  —  the  edifice  of  constitu- 
tional American  liberty. 

But  let  us  hope  for  better  things.  Let  us  trust  in  that  gracious 
Being  who  has  hitherto  held  our  country  as  in  the  hollow  of  his 
hand.  Let  us  trust  to  the  virtue  and  the  intelligence  of  the  people, 
and  to  the  efficacy  of  religious  obligation.  Let  us  trust  to  the  influ- 
ence of  Washington's  example.  Let  us  hope  that  that  fear  of 
Heaven  which  expels  all  other  fear,  and  that  regard  to  duty  which 
transcends  all  other  regard,  may  influence  public  men  and  private 
citizens,  and  lead  our  country  still  onward  in  her  happy  career. 
Full  of  these  gratifying  anticipations  and  hopes,  let  us  look  forward 
to  the  end  of  that  century  which  is  now  commenced.  A  hundred 
years  hence,  other  disciples  of  Washington  will  celebrate  his  birth 
with  no  less  of  sincere  admiration  than  we  now  commemorate  it. 
When  they  shall  meet,  as  we  now  meet,  to  do  themselves  and  him 
that  honor,  so  surely  as  they  shall  see  the  blue  summits  of  his 
native  mountains  rise  in  the  horizon,  so  surely  as  they  shall  behold 
the  river  on  whose  banks  he  lived,  and  on  whose  banks  he  rests, 
still  flowing  on  toward  the  sea,  — so  surely  may  they  see,  as  we 
now  see,  the  flag  of  the  Union  floating  on  the  top  of  the  capitol ; 
and  then,  as  now,  may  the  sun,  in  his  course,  visit  no  land  more 
free,  more  happy,  more  lovely,  than  this  our  own  country ! 


AMERICA. —  C.  M.  Clay. 

\  may  be  an  enthusiast ;  but  I  cannot  but  give  utterance  to  the 
conceptions  of  my  own  mind.  When  I  look  upon  the  special 
developments  of  European  civilization;  when  I  contemplate  the 
growing  freedom  of  the  cities,  and  the  middle  class  which  had 
sprung  up  between  the  pretenders  to  divine  rule  on  the  one  hand, 
and  the  abject  serf  on  the  other ;  when  I  consider  the  Reforma- 
tion, and  the  invention  of  the  press,  and  see,  on  the  southern  shore 
of  the  continent,  an  humble  individual,  amidst  untold  difficulties 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


187 


anv.;  repeated  defeats,  pursuing  the  mysterious  suggestions  which 
the  mighty  deep  poured  unceasingly  upon  his  troubled  spirit,  till  at 
last,  with  great  and  irrepressible  energy  of  soul,  he  discovered  that 
there  lay  in  the  far  western  ocean  a  continent  open  for  the  infusion 
of  those  elementary  principles  of  liberty  which  were  dwarfed  in 
European  soil,  —  I  have  conceived  that  the  hand  of  destiny  was 
there ! 

"When  I  saw  the  immigration  of  the  Pilgrims  from  the  chalky 
shores  of  England,  —  in  the  night  fleeing  from  their  native  home 
—  so  dramatically  and  ably  pictured  by  Mr.  Webster  in  his  cele- 
brated oration,  —  when  father,  mother,  brother,  wife,  sister,  lover, 
were  all  lost,  by  those  melancholy  wanderers  "  stifling,"  in  the 
language  of  one  who  is  immortal  in  the  conception,  "  the  mighty 
hunger  of  the  heart,"  and  landing  amidst  cold,  and  poverty,  and 
death,  upon  the  rude  rocks  of  Plymouth,  —  I  have  ventured  to 
think  the  will  of  Deity  was  there  ! 

When  I  have  remembered  the  Revolution  of  '76,  —  the  seven 

years'  war —  three  millions  of  men  in  arms  against  the  most 

powerful  nation  in  history,  and  vindicating  their  independence, — 

I  have  thought  that  their  sufferings  and  death  were  not  in  vain  ! 

When  I  have  gone  and  seen  the  forsaken  hearth-stone,  —  looked  in 

upon  the  battle-field,  upon  the  dying  and  the  dead,  —  heard  the 

agonizing  cry,  "  Water,  for  the  sake  of  God !  water !  "  seeing  the 

dissolution  of  this  being,  —  pale  lips  pressing  in  death  the  yet  loved 

images  of  wife,  sister,  lover,  —  I  will  not  deem  all  these  in  vain  ! 

I  cannot  regard  this  great  continent,  reaching  from  the  Atlantic 

to  the  far  Pacific,  and  from  the  St.  John's  to  the  Rio  del  Norte,  a 

%  .  .  . 

barbarian  people  of  third-rate  civilization. 

Like  the  Roman  who  looked  back  upon  the  glory  of  his  ances- 
tors, in  woe  exclaiming, 

"  Great  Scipio's  ghost  complains  that  we  are  slow, 
And  Pompey's  shade  walks  unavenged  among  us," 

the  great  dead  hover  around  me;  —  Lawrence,  "Don't  give  up 
the  ship  !  "  —  Henry,  "  Give  me  liberty  or  give  me  death !  "  — 


188 


SPECIMENS  OF 


Adams,  "  Survive  or  perish,  1  am  for  the  declaration!  "  —  Allen, 
"  In  the  name  of  the  living  God,  I  come  !  " 

Come,  then,  thou  Eternal !  who  dwellest  not  in  temples  made- 
with  hands,  but  who,  in  the  city's  crowd  or  by  the  far  forest 
stream,  revealest  thyself  to  the  earnest  seeker  after  the  true  and 
right,  inspire  my  heart ;  give  me  undying  courage  to  pursue  the 
promptings  of  my  spirit ;  and,  whether  I  shall  be  called  in  the 
shades  of  life  to  look  upon  as  sweet  and  kind  and  lovely  faces  as 
now,  or,  shut  in  by  sorrow  and  night,  horrid  visions  shall  gloom 
upon  me  in  my  dying  hour —  0  !  my  country,  mayest  thou  yet 

BE  EREE ! 


THE  MISSOURI  QUESTION.  —  W.  Pinhiey. 

I  have  long  since  persuaded  myself  that  the  Missouri  question, 
as  it  is  called,  might  be  laid  to  rest,  with  innocence  and  safety,  by 
some  conciliatory  compromise  at  least,  by  which,  as  is  our  duty, 
we  might  reconcile  the  extremes  of  conflicting  views  and  feelings, 
without  any  sacrifice  of  constitutional  principle ;  and,  in  any  event, 
that  the  Union  would  easily  and  triumphantly  emerge  from  those 
portentous  clouds  with  which  this  controversy  is  supposed  to  have 
environed  it. 

Some  of  the  principles  announced  by  the  honorable  gentleman, 
with  an  explicitness  that  reflected  the  highest  credit  on  his  candor, 
did,  when  they  were  first  presented,  startle  me  not  a  little.  They 
were  not,  perhaps,  entirely  new.  Perhaps  I  had  seen  them  before 
in  some  shadowy  and  doubtful  shape, 

"  If  shape  it  might  be  called,  that  shape  had  none, 
Distinguishable  in  member,  joint,  or  limb." 

But  in  the  honorable  gentleman's  speech  they  were  shadowy  and 
doubtful  no  longer.  He  exhibited  them  in  forms  so  boldly  and 
accurately  defined,  with  contours  so  distinctly  traced,  with  features 
so  pronounced  and  striking,  that  I  was  unconscious  for  a  moment 
that  they  might  be  old  acquaintances.  I  received  them  as  novi 
hospites  within  these  walls,  and  gazed  upon  them  with  astonish- 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


189 


ment  and  alarm.  I  have  recovered,  however,  thank  God,  from  this 
paroxysm  of  terror,  although  not  from  that  of  astonishment.  I 
have  sought  and  found  tranquillity  and  courage  in  my  former  con- 
solatory faith.  My  reliance  is  that  these  principles  will  obtain  no 
general  currency ;  for,  if  they  should,  it  requires  no  gloomy  imag- 
ination to  sadden  the  perspective  of  the  future.  My  reliance  is 
upon  the  unsophisticated  good  sense  and  noble  spirit  of  the  Ameri- 
can people.  I  have  what  I  may  be  allowed  to  call  a  proud  and 
patriotic  trust,  that  they  will  give  countenance  to  no  principles 
which,  if  followed  out  to  their  obvious  consequences,  will  not  only 
shake  the  goodly  fabric  of  the  Union  to  its  foundations,  but  reduce 
it  to  a  melancholy  ruin.  The  people  of  this  country,  if  I  do  not 
wholly  mistake  their  character,  are  wise  as  well  as  virtuous. 
They  know  the  value  of  that  federal  association  which  is  to  them 
the  single  pledge  and  guarantee  of  power  and  peace.  Their  warm 
and  pious  affections  will  cling  to  it  as  to  their  only  hope  of  pros- 
perity and  happiness,  in  defiance  of  pernicious  abstractions,  by 
whomsoever  inculcated,  or  howsoever  seductive  and  alluring  in 
their  aspect. 

It  is  not  an  occasion  like  this,  although  connected,  as,  contrary 
to  all  reasonable  expectation,  it  has  been,  with  fearful  and  disorgan- 
izing theories,  which  would  make  our  estimates,  whether  fanciful 
or  sound,  of  natural  law,  the  measure  of  civil  rights  and  political 
sovereignty  in  the  social  state,  that  can  harm  the  Union.  It  must, 
indeed,  be  a  mighty  storm  that  can  push  from  its  moorings  this 
sacred  ark  of  the  common  safety.  It  is  not  every  trifling  breeze, 
however  it  may  be  made  to  sob  and  howl  in  imitation  of  the  tem- 
pest, by  the  auxiliary  breath  of  the  ambitious,  the  timid,  or  the 
discontented,  that  can  drive  this  gallant  vessel,  freighted  with 
everything  that  is  dear  to  an  American  bosom,  upon  the  rocks,  or 
lay  it  a  sheer  hulk  upon  the  ocean.  I  will  continue  to  cherish  the 
belief  that  the  Union  of  these  states  is  formed  to  bear  up  against 
far  greater  shocks  than,  through  all  vicissitudes,  it  is  ever  likely 
to  encounter.  I  will  continue  to  cherish  the  belief  that,  although, 
like  all  other  human  institutions,  it  may  for  a  season  be  disturbed, 
or  suffer  momentary  eclipse  by  the  transit  across  its  disk  of  some 


190 


SPECIMENS  OF 


malignant  planet,  it  possesses  a  recuperative  force,  a  redeeming 
energy  in  the  hearts  of  the  people,  that  will  soon  restore  it  to  its 
■wonted  calm,  and  give  it  back  its  accustomed  splendor.  On  such 
a  subject  I  will  discard  all  hysterical  apprehensions,  I  will  deal  in 
no  sinister  auguries,  I  will  indulge  in  no  hypochondriacal  forebod- 
ings. I  will  look  forward  to  the  future  with  gay  and  cheerful 
hope,  and  will  make  the  prospect  smile,  in  fancy  at  least,  until 
overwhelming  reality  shall  render  it  no  longer  possible. 

It  is  now  avowed  that,  while  Maine  is  to  be  ushered  into  the 
Union  with  every  possible  demonstration  of  studious  reverence  on 
our  part,  and  on  hers  with  colors  flying,  and  all  the  other  graceful 
accompaniments  of  honorable  triumph,  this  ill-conditioned  upstart 
of  the  west,  this  obscure  foundling  of  a  wilderness,  that  was  but 
yesterday  the  hunting-ground  of  the  savage,  is  to  find  her  way  into 
the  American  family  as  she  can,  with  a  humiliating  badge  of 
remediless  inferiority  patched  upon  her  garments,  with  the  mark 
of  recent,  qualified  manumission  upon  her,  or  rather  with  a  brand 
upon  her  forehead  to  tell  the  story  of  her  territorial  vassalage,  and 
to  perpetuate  the  memories  of  her  evil  propensities.  It  is  now 
avowed  that,  while  the  robust  district  of  Maine  is  to  be  seated  by 
the  side  of  her  truly  respectable  parent,  coordinate  in  authority  and 
honor,  and  is  to  be  dandled  into  that  power  and  dignity  of  which 
she  does  not  stand  in  need,  but  which  undoubtedly  she  deserves,  the 
more  infantine  and  feeble  Missouri  is  to  be  repelled  with  harsh- 
ness, and  forbidden  to  come  at  all,  unless  with  the  iron  collar  of 
servitude  about  her  neck,  instead  of  the  civic  crown  of  republican 
freedom  upon  her  brows,  and  is  to  be  doomed  forever  to  leading- 
strings,  unless  she  will  exchange  those  leading-strings  for  shackles. 

There  is  such  a  thing  as  enthusiasm,  moral,  religious  or  political 
or  a  compound  of  all  three ;  —  and  it  is  wonderful  what  it  wiL 
attempt,  and  from  what  imperceptible  beginnings  it  sometimes 
rises  into  a  mighty  agent.  Rising  from  some  obscure  or  unknown 
source,  it  first  shows  itself  a  petty  rivulet,  which  scarcely  murmurs 
over  the  pebbles  that  obstruct  its  way ;  then  it  swells  into  a  fierce 
torrent,  bearing  all  before  it;  and  then  again,  like  some  mountain 
stream  which  occasional  rains  have  precipitated  upon  the  valley,  it 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


191 


sinks  once  more  into  a  rivulet,  and  finally  leaves  its  channel  dry. 
Such  a  thing  has  happened.  I  do  not  say  that  it  is  now  happen- 
ing. It  would  not  become  me  to  say  so.  But,  if  it  should  occur, 
woe  to  the  unlucky  territory  that  should  be  struggling  to  make  its 
way  into  the  Union  at  the  moment  when  the  opposing  inundation 
was  at  its  height,  and  at  the  same  instant  this  wide  Mediterranean 
of  discretionary  powers,  which  it  seems  is  ours,  should  open  up  all 
its  sluices,  and,  with  a  consentaneous  rush,  mingle  with  the  turbid 
waters  of  the  others ! 


EDUCATION  OF  THE  YOUNG. —  IT.  Mann. 

From  her  earliest  colonial  history,  the  policy  of  Massachusetts 
has  been  to  develop  the  minds  of  all  her  people,  and  to  imbue  them 
with  the  principles  of  duty.  To  do  this  work  most  effectually,  she 
has  begun  it  with  the  young.  If  she  would  continue  to  mount 
higher  and  higher  towards  the  summit  of  prosperity,  she  must 
continue  the  means  by  which  her  present  elevation  has  been 
gained.  In  doing  this,  she  will  not  only  exercise  the  noblest  pre- 
rogative of  government,  but  will  cooperate  with  the  Almighty  in 
one  of  his  sublimest  works. 

The  Greek  rhetorician  Longinus  quotes  from  the  Mosaic  account 
of  the  creation  what  he  calls  the  sublimest  passage  ever  uttered : 
"  God  said,  •  Let  there  be  light,'  and  there  was  light."  From  the 
centre  of  black  immensity  effulgence  burst  forth.  Above,  beneath, 
on  every  side,  its  radiance  streamed  out,  silent,  yet  making  each 
spot  in  the  vast  concave  brighter  than  the  line  which  the  lightning 
pencils  upon  the  midnight  cloud.  Darkness  fied  as  the  swift  beams 
spread  onward  and  outward,  in  an  unending  circumfusion  of  splen- 
dor. Onward  and  outward  still  they  move  to  this  day,  glorifying, 
through  wider  and  wider  regions  of  space,  the  infinite  Author  from 
whose  power  and  beneficence  they  sprang.  But  not  only  in  the 
beginning  when  God  created  the  heavens  and  the  earth  did  he  say 
"  Let  there  be  light."  Whenever  a  human  soul  is  born  into  the 
world,  its  Creator  stands  over  it,  and  again  pronounces  the  same 
sublime  words,  "  Let  there  be  light." 


192 


SPECIMENS  OP 


Magnificent,  indeed,  was  the  material  creation,  when,  suddenly 
blazing  forth  in  mid  space,  the  new-born  sun  dispelled  the  dark- 
ness of  the  ancient  night.  But  infinitely  more  magnificent  is  it 
when  the  human  soul  rays  forth  its  subtler  and  swifter  beams ; 
when  the  light  of  the  senses  irradiates  all  outward  things,  reveal- 
ing the  beauty  of  their  colors  and  the  exquisite  symmetry  of  their 
proportions  and  forms ;  when  the  light  of  reason  penetrates  to  their 
invisible  properties  and  laws,  and  displays  all  those  hidden  rela- 
tions that  make  up  all  the  sciences ;  when  the  light  of  conscience 
illuminates  the  moral  world,  separating  truth  from  error,  and 
virtue  from  vice.  The  light  of  the  newly-kindled  sun,  indeed,  was 
glorious.  It  struck  upon  all  the  planets,  and  waked  into  existence 
their  myriad  capacities  of  life  and  joy.  As  it  rebounded  from 
them,  and  showed  their  vast  orbs  all  wheeling,  circle  beyond  circle, 
in  their  stupendous  courses,  the  sons  of  God  shouted  for  joy.  That 
light  sped  onward,  beyond  Sirius,  beyond  the  pole-star,  beyond 
Orion  and  the  Pleiades,  and  is  still  spreading  onward  into  the 
abysses  of  space.  But  the  light  of  the  human  soul  flies  swifter 
than  the  light  of  the  sun,  and  outshines  its  meridian  blaze.  It 
can  embrace  not  only  the  sun  of  our  system,  but  all  suns  and  gal- 
axies of  suns  ;  ay !  the  soul  is  capable  of  knowing  and  of  enjoying 
Him  who  created  the  suns  themselves :  and  when  these  starry  lus- 
tres that  now  glorify  the  firmament  shall  wax  dim,  and  fade  away 
like  a  wasted  taper,  the  light  of  the  soul  shall  still  remain ;  nor 
time,  nor  cloud,  nor  any  power  but  its  own  perversity,  shall  ever 
quench  its  brightness.  Again  I  would  say,  that  whenever  a  human 
soul  is  born  into  the  world,  God  stands  over  it,  and  pronounces  the 
same  sublime  fiat,  "  Let  there  be  light !  "  and  may  the  time  soon 
come,  when  all  human  governments  shall  cooperate  with  the  divine 
government  in  carrying  this  benediction  and  baptism  into  fulfil- 
ment ! 

THE  FORCE  BILL.  —  /.  C.  Calhoun. 

The  bill  violates  the  constitution,  plainly  and  palpably,  in  mam 
of  its  provisions,  by  authorizing  the  president,  at  his  pleasure,  t< 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


193 


place  the  different  ports  of  this  Union  on  an  unequal  footing,  con- 
trary to  that  provision  of  the  constitution  which  declares  that  no 
preference  shall  be  given  to  one  port  over  another.  It  also  violates 
the  constitution,  by  authorizing  him,  at  his  discretion,  to  impose 
cash  duties  on  one  port  while  credit  is  allowed  in  others ;  by 
euabling  the  president  to  regulate  commerce,  a  power  vested  in 
Congress  alone ;  and  by  drawing  within  the  jurisdiction  of  the 
United  States'  courts  powers  never  intended  to  be  conferred  on 
them.  As  great  as  these  objections  are,  they  become  insignifi- 
cant in  the  provisions  of  a  bill,  which,  by  a  single  blow,  by  treat- 
ing the  states  as  a  mere  lawless  mass  of  individuals,  prostrates  all 
the  barriers  of  the  constitution.  It  proceeds  on  the  ground  that 
the  entire  sovereignty  of  this  country  belongs  to  the  American 
people,  as  forming  one  great  community,  and  regards  the  states 
as  mere  fractions  or  counties,  and  not  as  an  integral  part  of  the 
Union ;  having  no  more  right  to  resist  the  encroachments  of  the 
government  than  a  county  has  to  resist  the  authority  of  a  state ; 
and  treating  such  resistance  as  the  lawless  acts  of  so  many  indi- 
viduals, without  possessing  sovereignty  or  political  rights. 

It  has  been  said  that  the  bill  declares  war  against  South  Caro- 
lina. No  !  it  decrees  a  massacre  of  her  citizens  !  War  has  some- 
thing ennobling  about  it,  and,  with  all  its  horrors,  brings  into 
action  the  highest  qualities,  intellectual  and  moral.  It  was,  per- 
haps, in  the  order  of  Providence  that  it  should  be  permitted  for 
that  very  purpose.  But  this  bill  declares  no  war,  except,  indeed, 
it  be  that  which  savages  wage ;  a  war,  not  against  the  community, 
but  the  citizens  of  whom  that  community  is  composed.  But  I 
regard  it  as  worse  than  savage  warfare,  —  as  an  Attempt  to  take 
away  life,  under  the  color  of  law,  without  the  trial  by  jury,  or  any 
other  safeguard  which  the  constitution  has  thrown  around  the  life 
of  the  citizen  !  It  authorizes  the  president,  or  even  his  deputies, 
when  they  may  suppose  the  law  to  be  violated,  without  the  inter- 
vention of  a  court  or  jury,  to  kill  without  mercy  or  discrimination. 

It  has  been  said  by  the  senator  from  Tennessee  to  be  a  measure 
of  peace!  Yes  !  such  peace  as  the  wolf  gives  to  the  lamb,  —  the 
kite  to  the  dove !  Such  peace  as  Russia  gives  to  Poland,  or  death 
IT 


194 


SPECIMENS  OF 


to  its  victim !  A  peace  ly  extinguishing  the  political  existence  of 
the  state,  bj  awing  her  into  an  abandonment  of  the  exercise  of 
every  power  which  constitutes  her  a  sovereign  community  !  It  is 
to  South  Carolina  a  question  of  self-preservation ;  and  I  proclaim 
it,  that,  should  this  bill  pass,  and  an  attempt  be  made  to  enforce  it, 
it  will  be  resisted,  at  every  hazard  —  even  that  of  death  itself ! 
Death  is  not  the  greatest  calamity;  there  are  others  still  more 
terrible  to  the  free  and  brave,  and  among  them  may  be  placed 
the  loss  of  liberty  and  honor.  There  are  thousands  of  her 
brave  sons%who,  if  need  be,  are  prepared  cheerfully  to  lay  down 
their  lives  in  defence  of  the  state,  and  the  great  principles  of  con- 
stitutional liberty  for  which  she  is  contending.  God  forbid  that 
this  should  become  necessary  !  It  never  can  be,  unless  this  gov- 
ernment is  resolved  to  bring  the  question  to  extremity  ;  when  her 
gallant  sons  will  stand  prepared  to  perform  the  last  duty  —  to  die 
nobly  ! 


MASSACHUSETTS  AND  VIRGINIA.  —  /.  G.  Palfrey. 

Three  days  ago  I  listened  to  another  strain  from  the  Ancient 
Dominion,  with  the  delight  which  such  graceful  eloquence  has  the 
power  to  give,  and  certainly  not  without  my  share  of  the  emotion 
which  was  stirred  in  every  hearer.  I  trust  that  it  was  not  a  mere 
transient  pleasure,  but  that  I  was  warmed  with  something  of  the 
patriotic  spirit  which  he  has  so  powerfully  exhorted  us  to  cultivate. 
So  far  as  that  effect  was  produced,  I  shall  be  only  the  better  qual- 
ified to  sustain  those  views  of  the  public  well-being  and  honor  of 
which  I  have  occasionally  come  forward  here  as  the  very  humble 
advocate.  Admiring  the  elevated  and  generous  tone  of  many  of 
that  gentleman's  remarks,  there  were  yet  some  things  I  could  have 
wished  otherwise,  independent  of  his  argument  on  the  particular 
question  now  in  hand,  which,  of  course,  did  not  satisfy  me. 

The  gentleman  thinks  that  Virginia  laid  Massachusetts  under 
an  obligation  of  gratitude  and  affection  by  her  sympathy  and  aid 
in  the  disastrous  time  of  the  Boston  port-bill.  I  think  she  did, 
and  that  the  debt  is  mutual,  at  least.    Does  the  gentleman  sup- 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


195 


pose  that  the  distresses  incurred  by  Massachusetts,  at  the  period 
of  which  he  speaks,  were  solely  for  objects  of  her  own ;  or  that  the 
exertions  made  by  Virginia  and  others  of  her  sister  colonies,  — 
whether  regarded  a3  made  in  her  behalf,  or  for  the  common  cause, 
for  which  she  was  standing  the  foremost  champion,  —  were  any- 
thing more  than  mitigations  of  her  woe  ?  When  James  Otis  argued 
in  the  old  state-house  against  the  writs  of  assistance,  and  "  then 
and  there,"  according  to  John  Adams,  "  the  child  Independence 
was  born,"  for  whom  was  that  birth  ?  —  for  Massachusetts,  or  for 
America  ?  When,  from  her  Faneuil  Hall,  and  the  meetings  of  her 
village  democracies,  the  gauntlet  was  thrown  down  to  the  tremen- 
dous power  of  England,  was  Massachusetts  alone  in  the  prospect 
of  advantage  from  that  strife,  or  only  most  forward  in  its  perils  ? 
When  the  vindictive  "  port  bill,"  to  which  the  gentleman  referred, 
took  effect,  was  it  some  Virginian  city,  or  was  it  Boston,  the  chief 
mart  of  the  continent,  that  saw  its  prosperity  made  desolation,  and 
the  grass  springing  in  its  streets  ?  And  if  Massachusetts  did  incur 
a  debt  for  the  sympathy  and  succors  which,  as  the  gentleman  cor- 
rectly states,  she  then  received,  I  think  she  paid  some  instalments 
of  it  when  she  bore  the  first  furious  brunt  of  the  battle  on  her  own 
soil,  when  she  sent  nearly  one  soldier  in  every  three  to  the  armies 
of  the  Revolution,  and  when  the  excess  of  her  payments  into  the 
common  treasury,  for  the  prosecution  of  the  war,  over  and  above 
what  she  drew  from  it,  was  greater  than  that  of  the  aggregate  of 
her  twelve  sister  states. 

But  when  the  gentleman,  calling  up  affecting  reminiscences  of 
the  past,  appealed  to  us  of  Massachusetts  to  be  faithful  to  the  obli- 
gations of  patriotism,  I  repeat  that  I  trust  his  language  fell  profit- 
ably as  well  as  pleasantly  on  my  ear.  He  has  reminded  us  of  our 
stern  but  constant  ancestry.  I  hope  we  shall  be  true  to  their  great 
mission  for  freedom  and  right,  and  all  the  more  true  for  having 
listened  to  his  own  impressive  exhortation.  The  gentleman  remem- 
bers the  declaration  of  Hume,  that  "  it  was  to  the  Puritans  that 
the  people  of  England  owed  its  liberties."  May  their  race  never 
desert  that  work,  as  long  as  any  of  it  is  left  to  do !  Sir,  as  I  come 
of  a  morning  to  my  duties  here,  I  am  apt  to  stop  before  the  pic- 


196 


Sl'EClilLN'J  OF 


ture  in  your  rotunda,  of  the  departure  from  Delft  Haven  of  that 

vessel,  "  freighted  with  the  best  hopes  of  the  world,"  and  refresh 
myself  by  looking  in  the  faces  of  four  ancestors  of  my  own,  depicted 
by  the  limner  in  the  group  on  that  dismal  deck :  the  brave  and 
prudent  leader  of  the  company,  his  head  and  knee  bowed  in  prayer, 

—  his  faithful  partner,  blending  in  her  mild  but  care-worn  counte- 
nance the  expression  of  the  wife,  the  parent,  the  exile  and  the  saint, 

—  the  young  maiden  and  the  youth,  going  out  to  the  wide  sea  and 
the  wide  world,  but  already  trained  to  masculine  endurance  and 
"  perfect  peace,"  by  the  precious  faith  of  Christ.  Not  more  stead- 
fast than  those  forlorn  wanderers  were  the  men  who,  in  the  tapes- 
tried chambers  of  England's  great  sway,  with  stout  sword  on  thigh, 
and  a  stouter  faith  in  the  heart,  and  the  ragged  flags  of  Cressy, 
and  Agincourt,  and  the  Armada,  above  their  heads, 

u  Sat,  with  Bibles  open,  around  the  council  hoard, 
And  answered  a  king's  missive  with  a  stern  4  Thus  saith  the  Lord.'  ** 

Not  hardier  were  they  who,  in  the  iron  squadrons  of  Fairfax  and 
Cromwell,  had  many  a  hard  trot,  on  many  a  hot  and  dusty  day,  to 
get  so  much  as  a  sight  of  the  backs  of  those  silk  and  velvet  cavaliers 
of  whom  the  eloquent  gentleman  discoursed  with  so  much  unction. 


FRENCH  AGGRESSIONS.  —  R.  T.  Paine. 

The  solemn  oath  of  America  has  ascended  to  heaven.  She  has 
sworn  to  preserve  her  independence,  her  religion  and  her  laws,  or 
nobly  perish  in  their  defence,  and  be  buried  in  the  wrecks  of  her 
empire.  To  the  fate  of  our  government  is  united  the  fate  of  our 
country.  The  convulsions  that  destroy  the  one  must  desolate  the 
other.  Their  destinies  are  interwoven,  and  they  must  triumph  or 
fall  together.  Where,  then,  is  the  man  so  hardened  in  political 
iniquity  as  to  advocate  the  victories  of  French  arms,  which  would 
render  his  countrymen  slaves,  or  to  promote  the  diffusion  of  French 
principles,  which  would  render  them  savages  ?  Can  it  be  doubted 
that  the  pike  of  a  French  soldier  is  less  cruel  and  ferocious  than 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


197 


the  fraternity  of  a  French  philosopher  ?  Where  is  the  youth  in 
this  assembly  who  could,  -without  agonized  emotions,  behold  the 
Gallic  invader  hurling  the  brand  of  devastation  into  the  dwelling 
of  his  father,  or  with  sacrilegious  cupidity  plundering  the  com- 
munion-table of  his  God  ?  Who  could  witness,  without  indignant 
desperation,  the  mother  who  bore  him  inhumanly  murdered  in  the 
defence  of  her  infants  ?  Who  could  hear,  without  frantic  horror, 
the  shrieks  of  a  sister  flying  from  pollution,  and  leaping  from  the 
blazing  roof  to  impale  herself  on  the  point  of  a  halberd  ?  "If  any, 
speak,  for  him  I  have  offended !  "  No,  my  fellow-citizens,  these 
scenes  are  never  to  be  witnessed  by  American  eyes.  The  souls  of 
your  ancestors  still  live  in  the  bosom  of  their  descendants ;  and, 
rather  than  submit  this  fair  land  of  their  inheritance  to  ravage  and 
dishonor,  from  hoary  age  to  helpless  infancy  they  will  form  one 
united  bulwark,  and  oppose  their  breasts  to  the  assailing  foe. 


RESISTANCE  TO  ENGLAND.  —  P.  Henry. 

Mr.  President,  it  is  natural  for  man  to  indulge  in  the  illusions 
of  hope.  We  are  apt  to  shut  our  eyes  against  a  painful  truth,  and 
listen  to  the  song  of  that  siren  till  she  transforms  us  into  beasts. 
Is  it  the  part  of  wise  men,  engaged  in  the  great  and  arduous 
struggle  for  liberty  ?  Are  we  disposed  to  be  of  the  number  of 
those  who,  having  eyes  see  not,  and  having  ears  hear  not,  the 
things  which  so  nearly  concern  their  temporal  salvation  ?  For  my 
part,  whatever  anguish  of  spirit  it  may  cost,  I  am  willing  to  know 
the  whole  truth,  and  to  provide  for  it. 

I  have  but  one  lamp  by  which  my  feet  are  guided,  and  that  is 
the  lamp  of  experience.  I  know  of  no  way  of  judging  of  the 
future  but  by  the  past.  And,  judging  by  the  past,  I  wish  to 
know  what  there  has  been  in  the  conduct  of  the  British  ministry, 
for  the  last  ten  years,  to  justify  those  hopes  with  which  gentlemen 
have  been  pleased  to  solace  themselves  and  the  house  ?  Is  it  that 
insidious  smile  with  which  our  petition  has  been  lately  received  ? 
Trust  it  not,  sir !  it  will  prove  a  snare  to  your  feet.  Suffer  not 
17* 


198 


SPECIMENS  OF 


yourselves  to  be  betrayed  with  a  kiss.  Ask  yourselves*  how  this 
gracious  reception  of  our  petition  comports  with  those  warlike 
preparations  which  cover  our  waters  and  darken  our  land. 

Are  fleets  and  armies  necessary  to  a  work  of  love  and  reconcili- 
ation ?  Have  we  shown  ourselves  so  unwilling  to  be  reconciled, 
that  force  must  be  called  in  to  win  back  our  love  ?  Let  us  not 
deceive  ourselves,  sir.  These  are  the  implements  of  war  and  sub- 
jugation, the  last  arguments  to  which  kings  resort.  I  ask  gentle- 
men, sir,  what  means  this  martial  array,  if  its  purpose  be  not  to 
force  us  to  submission  ?  Can  gentlemen  assign  any  other  motive 
for  it  ? 

Has  Great  Britain  any  other  enemy  in  this  quarter  of  the  world, 
to  call  for  all  this  accumulation  of  navies  and  armies  ?  No,  sir, 
she  has  none.  They  are  meant  for  us;  they  can  be  meant  for  no 
other.  They  are  sent  over  to  bind  and  rivet  upon  us  those  chains 
which  the  British  ministers  have  been  so  long  forging. 

And  what  have  we  to  oppose  them  ?  Shall  we  try  argument  ? 
Sir,  we  have  been  trying  that  for  the  last  ten  years.  Have  we 
anything  new  to  offer  on  the  subject  ?  Nothing.  We  have  held 
the  subject  up  in  every  light  of  which  it  is  capable ;  but  it  has 
been  all  in  vain.  Shall  we  resort  to  entreaty  and  humble  suppli- 
'  cation  ?  What  terms  shall  we  find  which  have  not  been  already 
exhausted  ?  Let  us  not,  I  beseech  you,  sir,  deceive  ourselves  longer. 
Sir,  we  have  done  everything  that  could  be  done,  to  avert  the  storm 
which  is  now  coming  on.  We  have  petitioned,  we  have  remon- 
strated, we  have  supplicated,  we  have  prostrated  ourselves  before 
the  throne,  and  have  implored  its  interposition  to  arrest  the  tyran- 
nical hands  of  the  ministry  and  parliament.  Our  petitions  have 
been  slighted;  our  remonstrances  have  produced  additional  vio- 
lence and  insult;  our  supplications  have  been  disregarded;  and  we 
have  been  spurned,  with  contempt,  from  the  foot  of  the  throne. 

They  tell  us,  sir,  that  we  are  weak  —  unable  to  cope  with  so 
formidable  an  adversary.  But  when  shall  we  be  stronger  ?  Will 
it  be  the  next  week,  or  the  next  year  ?  Will  it  be  when  we  are 
totally  disarmed,  and  when  a  British  guard  shall  be  stationed  in 
every  house  ?    Shall  we  gather  strength  by  irresolution  and  inac- 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


199 


tion  ?  Shall  we  acquire  the  means  of  effectual  resistance  by  lying 
supinely  on  our  backs,  and  hugging  the  delusive  phantom  of  hope, 
until  our  enemies  shall  have  bound  us  hand  and  foot  ? 

Sir,  we  are  not  weak,  if  we  make  a  proper  use  of  those  means 
which  the  God  of  nature  hath  placed  in  our  power.  Three  mil- 
lions of  people  armed  in  the  holy  cause  of  liberty,  and  in  such  a 
country  as  that  which  we  possess,  are  invincible  by  any  force  which 
our  enemy  can-send  against  us.  Besides,  sir,  we  shall  not  fight 
alone.  There  is  a  just  God  who  presides  over  the  destinies  of 
nations,  and  who  will  raise  up  friends  to  fight  our  battles  for  us. 

The  battle,  sir,  is  not  to  the  strong  alone  ;  it  is  to  the  active,  the 
vigilant,  the  brave.  Besides,  sir,  we  have  no  election !  If  we 
were  base  enough  to  desire  it,  it  is  now  too  late  to  retire  from  the 
contest.  There  is  no  retreat  —  but  in  submission  and  slavery ! 
Our  chains  are  forged !  Their  clanking  may  be  heard  on  the 
plains  of  Boston.  The  war  is  inevitable ;  —  and  let  it  come  !  I 
repeat,  it  sir ;  let  it  come ! 

It  is  in  vain,  sir,  to  extenuate  the  matter.  Gentlemen  may  cry 
Peace !  peace !  —  but  there  is  no  peace.  The  war  is  actually 
begun !  The  next  gale  that  sweeps  from  the  north  will  bring  to 
our  ears  the  clash  of  resounding  arms !  Our  brethren  are  already 
in  the  field.  Why  stand  we  here  idle  ?  What  is  it  that  gentle- 
men wish  ?  What  would  they  have  ?  Is  life  so  dear,  or  peace  so 
sweet,  as  to  be  purchased  at  the  price  of  chains  and  slavery  ?  For- 
bid it,  Heaven !  I  know  not  what  course  others  may  take ;  but 
as  for  me,  give  me  liberty,  or  give  me  death ! 


CHRISTIANITY  THE  BASIS  OF  LIBERTY.  —  L.  Beecher. 

Twice,  in  France,  the  physical  power  has  gained  the  ascendency 
over  law ;  and  by  the  last  victory  the  discovery  has  been  made, 
that,  to  patriots,  cities  are  fortresses,  and  pavements  munitions. 
This  is  one  of  the  most  glorious  and  dreadful  discoveries  of  modern 
days  —  glorious  in  its  ultimate  results,  in  the  emancipation  of  the 
world  but  dreadful  in  those  intervening  revolutions  which  power 


200 


SPECIMENS  OF 


may  achieve  in  the  conquest  of  liberty,  without  corresponding 
intelligence  and  virtue  for  its  permanent  preservation. 

The  conquest  of  liberty  is  not  difficult ;  —  the  question  is,  where 
to  put  it  —  with  whom  to  intrust  it.  If  to  the  multitude  who 
achieved  it  it  be  committed,  it  will  perish  by  anarchy.  If  national 
guards  are  employed  in  its  defence,  the  bayonets  which  protect  it 
are  at  any  moment  able  to  destroy  it  for  a  military  despotism.  If 
to  a  republican  king  it  be  intrusted,  it  will  have  to  be  regulated  by 
state  policy,  and  fed  on  bread  and  water,  until  the  action  of  her 
heart,  and  the  movement  of  her  tongue,  and  the  power  of  her  arm, 
as  under  the  deadly  incubus,  shall  cease.  There  is  not  in  this 
wide  world  a  safe  deposit  for  liberty,  but  the  hearts  of  patriots,  so 
enlightened  as  to  be  able  to  judge  of  correct  legislation,  and  so 
patient  and  disinterested  as  to  practise  self-denial  and  self-govern- 
ment for  the  public  good. 

But  can  such  a  state  of  society  be  founded  and  maintained  with- 
out the  Bible  and  the  institutions  of  Christianity  ?  Did  a  condition 
of  unperverted  liberty,  uninspired  by  Christianity,  ever  bless  the 
world  through  any  considerable  period  of  duration  ?  The  power 
of  a  favoring  clime,  and  the  force  of  genius,  did  thrust  up  from  the 
dead  level  of  monotonous  despotism  the  republics  of  Greece  to  a 
temporary  liberty ;  but  it  was  a  patent  model  only,  compared  with 
such  a  nation  as  this ;  and  it  was  partial,  and  capricious,  and  of 
short  duration,  and  rendered  illustrious  rather  by  the  darkness 
which  preceded  and  followed,  than  by  the  benign  influence  of  its 
own  beams. 


FEAR  OF  FOREIGN  POTTERS.  —  G.  Morris. 

Look  at  the  conduct  of  America  in  her  infant  years.  When 
there  was  no  actual  invasion  of  right,  but  only  a  claim  to  invade, 
she  resisted  the  claim,  she  spurned  the  insult.  Did  we  then  hesi- 
tate ?  Did  we  then  wait  for  foreign  alliance  ?  No !  animated 
with  the  spirit,  warmed  with  the  soul  of  freedom,  we  threw  our 
oaths  of  allegiance  in  the  face  of  our  sovereign,  and  committed  our 
fortunes  and  our  fate  to  the  God  of  battles.    We  then  were  sub- 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


201 


jects.  We  had  not  then  attained  to  the  dignity  of  an  independent 
republic.  We  then  had  no  rank  among  the^  nations  of  the  earth. 
But  we  had  the  spirit  which  deserved  that  elevated  station.  And, 
now  that  we  have  gained  it,  shall  we  fall  from  our  hpnor  ? 

Sir,  I  repeat  to  you  that  I  wish  for  peace :  real,  lasting,  honor- 
able peace.  To  obtain  and  secure  this  blessing,  let  us,  by  a  bold 
and  decisive  conduct,  convince  the  powers  of  Europe  that  we  are 
determined  to  defend  our  rights ;  that  we  will  not  submit  to  insult ; 
that  we  will  not  bear  degradation.  This  is  the  conduct  which 
becomes  a  generous  people.  This  conduct  will  command  the 
respect  of  the  world.  Nay,  it  may  rouse  all  Europe  to  a  proper 
sense  of  their  situation.  They  see  that  the  balance  of  power,  on 
which  their  liberties  depend,  is,  if  not  destroyed,  in  extreme  dan- 
ger. They  know  that  the  dominion  of  France  has  been  extended 
by  the  sword  over  millions  who  groan  in  the  servitude  of  their 
new  masters.  These  unwilling  subjects  are  ripe  for  revolt.  The 
empire  of  the  Gauls  is  not,  like  that  of  Rome,  secured  by  political 
institutions.  It  may  yet  be  broken.  But,  whatever  may  be  the 
conduct  of  others,  let  us  act  as  becomes  ourselves.  I  cannot 
believe,  with  my  honorable  colleague,  that  three-fourths  of  Amer- 
ica are  opposed  to  vigorous  measures.  I  cannot  believe  that  they 
will  meanly  refuse  to  pay  the  sums  needful  to  vindicate  their  honor, 
and  support  their  independence.  This  is  a  libel  on  the  people  of 
America.  They  will  disdain  submission  to  the  proudest  sovereign 
on  earth.  They  have  not  lost  the  spirit  of  '76.  But,  if  they  are 
so  base  as  to  barter  their  rights  for  gold,  —  if  they  are  so  vile  that 
they  will  not  defend  their  honor,  —  they  arc  unworthy  of  the  rank 
they  enjoy,  and  it  is  no  matter  how  soon  they  are  parcelled  out 
among  better  masters. 

Act  as  becomes  America,  and  all  America  will  be  united  in 
your  support.  "What  is  our  conduct  ?  Do  we  endeavor  to  fetter 
and  trammel  the  executive  authority  ?  Do  we  oppose  obstacles  ? 
Do  we  raise  difficulties  ?  No !  We  are  willing  to  commit  into 
the  hands  of  the  chief  magistrate  the  treasure,  the  power  and  the 
3nergies,  of  the  country.  We  ask  for  ourselves  nothing.  We 
expect  nothing.    All  we  ask  is  for  our  country.    And,  although 


202 


SPECIMENS  OV 


we  do  not  believe  in  the  success  of  treaty,  yet  the  resolutions  we 
move,  and  the  language  we  hold  are  calculated  to  promote  it. 

I  have  now  performed,  to  the  best  of  my  power,  the  great  duty 
which  I  owed  to  my  country.  I  have  given  that  advice  which  in 
my  soul  I  believe  to  be  the  best.  But  I  have  little  hope  that  it 
will  be  adopted.  I  fear  that,  by  feeble  councils,  we  shall  be  ex- 
posed to  a  long  and  bloody  war.  This  fear  is  perhaps  ill-founded, 
and  if  so  I  shall  thank  God  that  I  was  mistaken.  I  know  that, 
in  the  order  of  his  providence,  the  wisest  ends  frequently  result 
from  the  most  foolish  measures.  It  is  our  duty  to  submit  our- 
selves to  his  high  dispensations.  I  know  that  war,  with  all  its 
misery,  is  not  wholly  without  advantage.  It  calls  forth  the  ener- 
gies of  character ;  it  favors  the  manly  virtues ;  it  gives  elevation 
to  sentiment ;  it  produces  national  union,  generates  patriotic  love, 
and  infuses  a  just  sense  of  national  honor.  If,  then,  we  are 
doomed  to  war,  let  us  meet  it  as  we  ought ;  and,  when  the  hour  of 
trial  comes,  let  it  find  us  a  band  of  brothers. 


BRITISH  INFLUENCE.  —  /.  Randolph. 

Against  wdiom  are  these  charges  of  British  predilection  brought  ? 
Against  men  who,  in  the  war  of  the  Revolution,  were  in  the  coun- 
cils of  the  nation,  or  fighting  the  battles  of  your  country. 

Strange,  that  we  should  have  no  objection  to  any  other  people  or 
government,  civilized  or  savage,  in  the  whole  world !  The  great 
autocrat  of  all  the  Russias  receives  the  homage  of  our  high  consid- 
eration. The  dey  of  Algiers  and  his  divan  of  pirates  are  a  very 
civil,  good  sort  of  people,  with  whom  we  find  no  difficulty  in  main- 
taining the  relations  of  peace  and  amity.  "  Turks,  Jews,  and  infi- 
dels," or  the  barbarians  and  savages  of  every  clime  and  color,  are 
welcome  to  our  arms.  With  chiefs  of  banditti,  negro  or  mulatto, 
we  can  treat  and  can  trade.  Name,  however,  but  England,  and 
all  our  antipathies  are  up  in  arms  against  her.  Against  whom  ? 
Against  those  whose  blood  runs  in  our  veins ;  in  common  with 
whom  we  claim  Shakspeare,  and  Newton,  and  Chatham,  for  our 


AMEBIC  A  J?  ELOQUENCE. 


203 


countrymen  ;  whose  government  is  the  freest  on  earth,  our  own  only 
excepted ;  from  whom  every  valuable  principle  of  our  own  institu- 
tions has  been  borrowed  —  representation,  trial  by  jury,  voting 
the  supplies,  writ  of  habeas  corpus  —  our  whole  civil  and  criminal 
jurisprudence.  In  what  school  did  the  worthies  of  our  land,  the 
Washingtons,  Henrys,  Hancocks,  Franklins,  Rutledges,  of  Amer- 
ica, learn  those  principles  of  civil  liberty  which  were  so  nobly 
asserted  by  their  wisdom  and  valor  ?  American  resistance  to  Brit- 
ish usurpation  has  not  been  more  warmly  cherished  by  these  great 
men  and  their  compatriots  —  not  more  by  Washington,  Hancock, 
and  Henry —  than  by  Chatham  and  his  illustrious  associates  in 
the  British  Parliament. 

It  ought  to  be  remembered,  too,  that  the  heart  of  the  English 
people  was  with  us.  It  was  a  selfish  and  corrupt  ministry,  and 
their  servile  tools,  to  whom  we  were  not  more  opposed  than  they 
were.  I  trust  that  none  such  may  ever  exist  among  us ;  for  tools 
will  never  be  wanting  to  subserve  the  purposes,  however  ruinous  or 
wicked,  of  kings  and  ministers  of  state.  I  acknowledge  the  influ- 
ence of  a  Shakspeare  and  a  Milton  upon  my  imagination,  of  a 
Locke  upon  my  understanding,  of  a  Sidney  upon  my  political  prin- 
ciples, of  a  Chatham  upon  qualities  which  would  to  God  I  pos- 
sessed in  common  with  that  illustrious  man !  This  is  a  British 
influence  which  I  can  never  shake  off. 


THE  BRITISH  TKEATY.  —  F.  Ames. 

Wars,  in  all  countries,  and  most  of  all  in  such  as  are  free,  arise 
from  the  impetuosity  of  the  public  feelings.  The  despotism  of 
Turkey  is  often  obliged  by  clamor  to  unsheath  the  sword.  War 
might  perhaps  be  delayed,  but  could  not  be  prevented.  The 
causes  of  it  would  remain,  would  be  aggravated,  would  be  multi- 
plied, and  soon  become  intolerable.  More  captures,  more  impress- 
ments, would  swell  the  list  of  our  wrongs,  and  the  current  of  our 
rage.  I  make  no  calculation  of  the  arts  of  those  whose  employ- 
ment it  has  been,  on  former  occasions,  to  fan  the  lire.    I  say  noth- 


204 


SPECIMENS  OF 


ing  of  the  foreign  money  and  emissaries  that  might  foment  the 
spirit  of  hostility,  because  the  state  of  things  will  naturally  run  to 
violence.  With  less  than  their  former  exertion,  they  would  be 
successful. 

Will  our  government  be  able  to  temper  and  restrain  the  turbu- 
lence of  such  a  crisis  ?  The  government,  alas !  will  be  in  no 
capacity  to  govern.  A  divided  people,  and  divided  councils! 
Shall  we  cherish  the  spirit  of  peace,  or  show  the  energies  of  war  ? 
Shall  we  make  our  adversary  afraid  of  our  strength,  or  dispose 
him,  by  the  measures  of  resentment  and  broken  faith,  to  respect 
our  rights  ?  Do  gentlemen  rely  on  the  state  of  peace  because  both 
nations  will  be  worse  disposed  to  keep  it,  —  because  injuries  and 
insults  still  harder  to  endure  will  be  mutually  offered  ? 

Such  a  state  of  things  will  exist,  if  we  should  long  avoid  war, 
as  will  be  worse  than  war.  Peace  without  security,  accumulation 
of  injury  without  redress  or  the  hope  of  it,  resentment  against  the 
aggressor,  contempt  for  ourselves,  intestine  discord  and  anarchy. 
Worse  than  this  need  not  be  apprehended ;  for,  if  worse  could  hap- 
pen, anarchy  would  bring  it.  Is  this  the  peace  gentlemen  under- 
take with  such  fearless  confidence  to  maintain  ?  Is  this  the  station 
of  American  dignity  which  the  high-spirited  champions  of  our 
national  independence  and  honor  could  endure ;  nay,  which  they 
are  anxious,  and  almost  violent,  to  seize  for  the  country  ?  What  is 
there  in  the  treaty  that  could  humble  us  so  low  ?  Are  they  the 
men  to  swallow  their  resentments  who  so  lately  were  choking  with 
them  ?  If,  in  the  case  contemplated  by  them,  it  should  be  peace, 
I  do  not  hesitate  to  declare  it  ought  not  to  be  peace. 

Is  there  anything  in  the  prospect  of  the  interior  state  of  the 
country  to  encourage  us  to  aggravate  the  dangers  of  a  war? 
Would  not  the  shock  of  that  evil  produce  another,  and  shake  down 
the  feeble  and  then  unbraced  structure  of  our  government  ?  Is 
this  a  chimera  ?  Is  it  going  off  the  ground  of  matter  of  fact  to 
say  the  rejection  of  the  appropriation  proceeds  upon  the  doctrine 
of  a  civil  war  of  the  departments  ?  Two  branches  have  ratified  a 
treat)'-,  and  we  are  going  to  set  it  aside.  How  is  this  disorder  in 
the  machine  to  be  rectified  ?    While  it  exists,  its  movements  mu3t 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


205 


stop  ;  and  when  we  talk  of  a  remedy,  is  that  any  other  than  the 
formidable  one  of  a  revolutionary  interposition  of  the  people  ? 
And  is  this,  in  the  judgment  even  of  my  opposers,  to  execute,  to 
preserve  the  constitution  and  the  public  order  ?  Is  this  the  state 
of  hazard,  if  not  of  convulsion,  which  they  can  have  the  courage  to 
contemplate  and  to  brave,  or  beyond  which  their  penetration  can 
reach  and  see  the  issue  ?  They  seem  to  believe,  and  they  act  as 
if  they  believed,  that  our  union,  our  peace,  our  liberty,  are  invul- 
nerable and  immortal,  —  as  if  our  happy  state  was  not  to  be  dis- 
turbed by  our  dissensions,  and  that  we  are  not  capable  of  falling 
from  it  by  our  un worthiness.  Some  of  them  have  no  doubt  better 
nerves  and  better  discernment  than  mine.  They  can  see  the  bright 
aspects  and  happy  consequences  of  all  this  array  of  horrors.  They 
can  see  intestine  discords,  our  government  disorganized,  our  wrongs 
aggravated,  multiplied  and  unredressed,  peace  with  dishonor,  or 
war  without  justice,  union  or  resources,  in  "  the  calm  lights  of  mild 
philosophy." 

After  rejecting  the  treaty,  what  is  to  be  the  next  step  ?  They 
must  have  foreseen  what  ought  to  be  done ;  they  have  doubtless 
resolved  what  to  propose.  Why,  then,  are  they  silent?  Dare 
they  not  avow  their  plan  of  conduct,  or  do  they  wait  till  our  pro- 
gress towards  confusion  shall  guide  them  in  forming  it  ? 

Let  me  cheer  the  mind,  weary,  no  doubt,  and  ready  to  despond 
on  this  prospect,  by  presenting  another,  which  it  is  yet  in  our 
power  to  realize.  Is  it  possible  for  a  real  American  to  look  at  the 
prosperity  of  this  country  without  some  desire  for  its  continuance, 
without  some  respect  for  the  measures  which  many  will  say  prcn 
duced,  and  all  will  confess  have  preserved  it  ?  Will  he  not  feel 
some  dread  that  a  change  of  system  will  reverse  the  scene  ?  The 
well-grounded  fears  of  our  citizens,  in  1794,  were  removed  by  the 
treaty,  but  are  not  forgotten.  Then  they  deemed  war  nearly  inev- 
itable ;  and  would  not  this  adjustment  have  been  considered,  at 
that  day,  as  a  happy  escape  from  the  calamity  ?  The  great  interest 
and  the  general  desire  of  our  people  was  to  enjoy  the  advan- 
tages of  neutrality.  This  instrument,  however  misrepresented, 
affords  America  that  inestimable  security.  The  causes  of  our  dis- 
18 


206 


SPECIMENS  07 


putes  are  either  cut  up  by  the  roots,  or  referred  to  a  new  negotia- 
tion after  the  end  of  the  European  war.  This  was  gaining  every 
thing,  because  it  confirmed  our  neutrality,  by  which  our  citizens 
are  gaining  everything.  This  alone  would  justify  the  engagements 
of  the  government.  For,  when  the  fiery  vapors  of  the  war  lowered 
in  the  skirts  of  our  horizon,  all  our  wishes  were  concentred  in  this 
one,  that  we  might  escape  the  desolation  of  the  storm.  This  treaty, 
like  a  rainbow  on  the  edge  of  the  cloud,  marked  to  our  eyes  the 
space  where  it  was  raging,  and  afforded,  at  the  same  time,  the  sure 
prognostic  of  fair  weather.  If  we  reject  it,  the  vivid  colors  will 
grow  pale :  it  will  be  a  baleful  meteor,  portending  tempest  and  war. 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  LIBERTY.  —  J.  Otis. 

England  may  as  well  dam  up  the  waters  of  the  Nile  with  bul- 
rushes, as  to  fetter  the  step  of  Freedom,  more  proud  and  firm  in 
this  youthful  land  than  where  she  treads  the  sequestered  glens  of 
Scotland,  or  couches  herself  among  the  magnificent  mountains  of 
Switzerland.  Arbitrary  principles,  like  those  against  which  we 
now  contend,  have  cost  one  King  of  England  his  life,  —  another, 
his  crown,  —  and  they  may  yet  cost  a  third  his  most  flourishing 
colonies. 

We  are  two  millions  —  one-fifth  fighting  men.  We  are  bold 
and  vigorous,  and  we  call  no  man  master.  To  the  nation  from 
whom  we  are  proud  to  derive  our  origin  we  were  ever,  and  we 
ever  will  be,  ready  to  yield  unforced  assistance ;  but  it  must  not, 
and  it  never  can,  be  extorted. 

Some  have  sneeringly  asked,  "  Are  the  Americans  too  poor  to 
pay  a  few  pounds  on  stamped  paper  ?  "  No  !  America,  thanks  to 
God  and  herself,  is  rich.  But  the  right  to  take  ten  pounds  implies 
the  right  to  take  a  thousand;  and  what  must  be  the  wealth  that 
avarice,  aided  by  power,  cannot  exhaust  ?  True,  the  spectre  is  now 
small ;  but  the  shadow  he  casts  before  him  is  huge  enough  to 
darken  all  this  fair  land.  Others,  in  sentimental  style,  talk  of  the 
immense  debt  of  gratitude  which  we  owe  to  England.    And  what 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


207 


is  the  amount  of  this  debt  ?  Why,  truly,  it  is  the  same  that  the 
young  lion  owes  to  the  dam,  which  has  brought  it  forth  on  the 
solitude  of  the  mountain,  or  left  it  amid  the  winds  and  storms  of 
the  desert. 

We  plunged  into  the  wave,  with  the  great  charter  of  freedom  in 
our  teeth,  because  the  fagot  and  torch  were  behind  us.  We  have 
waked  this  new  world  from  its  savage  lethargy ;  forests  have  been 
prostrated  in  our  path ;  towns  and  cities  have  grown  up  suddenly 
as  the  flowers  of  the  tropics ;  and  the  fires  in  our  autumnal  woods 
are  scarcely  more  rapid  than  the  increase  of  our  wealth  and  popu- 
lation. And  do  we  owe  all  this  to  the  kind  succor  of  the  mother 
country  ?  No !  we  owe  it  to  the  tyranny  that  drove  us  from  her, 
—  to  the  pelting  storms  which  invigorated  our  helpless  infancy. 

But,  perhaps  others  will  say,  "  We  ask  no  money  from  your 
gratitude,  —  we  only  demand  that  you  should  pay  your  own  ex- 
penses." And  who,  I  pray,  is  to  judge  of  their  necessity?  Why, 
the  king  —  and,  with  all  due  reverence  to  his  sacred  majesty,  he 
understands  the  real  wants  of  his  distant  subjects  as  little  as  he 
does  the  language  of  the  Choctaws !  Who  is  to  judge  concerning 
the  frequency  of  these  demands  ?  The  ministry.  Who  is  to  judge 
whether  the  money  is  properly  expended  ?  The  cabinet  behind 
the  throne.  In  every  instance,  those  who  take  are  to  judge  for 
those  who  pay.  If  this  system  is  suffered  to  go  into  operation,  we 
shall  have  reason  to  esteem  it  a  great  privilege  that  rain  and  dew 
do  not  depend  upon  parliament ;  otherwise,  they  would  soon  be 
taxed  and  dried. 

But,  thanks  to  God,  there  is  freedom  enough  left  upon  earth  to 
resist  such  monstrous  injustice.  The  flame  of  liberty  is  extin- 
guished in  Greece  and  Rome,  but  the  light  of  its  glowing  embers 
is  still  bright  and  strong  on  the  shores  of  America.  Actuated  By 
its  sacred  influence,  we  will  resist  unto  death !  But  we  will  not 
countenance  anarchy  and  misrule.  The  wrongs  that  a  desperate 
community  have  heaped  upon  their  enemies  shall  be  amply  and 
speedily  repaired.  Still,  it  may  be  well  for  some  proud  men  to 
remember,  that  a  fire  is  lighted  in  these  colonies  which  one  breath 
of  their  king  may  kindle  into  such  fury  that  the  blood  of  all  Eng- 
land cannot  extinguish  it ! 


208 


SPECIMENS  OF* 


KNOWLEDGE  IS  POWER.  —  E.  H.  Chapin. 

Sufficient  is  it  that  men  have  felt  and  enunciated  the  sublime 
doctrine  that  "  knowledge  is  power ; "  that,  as  mind  is  superior 
to  matter,  so  are  ideas  more  potent  and  enduring  than  prodigies  of 
physical  might.  Archimedes'  thought  is  stronger  than  his  lever. 
The  mind  that  planned  the  pyramids  was  more  powerful  than  the 
hands  that  piled  them.  The  inventors  of  the  mariner's  compass 
and  the  telescope  have  outdone  the  Macedonian,  and  won  new 
worlds.  And  the  influence  of  the  Caesars  seems  mean  and  narrow 
beside  the  imperial  dominion  of  the  printing-press.  Physical  force 
is  sectional,  and  acts  in  defined  methods.  But  knowledge  defies 
gravitation,  and  is  not  thwarted  by  space.  It  is  miraculous  in  the 
wonder  of  its  achievements,  and  in  its  independence  of  precedent 
and  routine.  "  Knowledge  is  power  !  "  Man  gains  wider  dominion 
by  his  intellect  than  by  his  right  arm.  The  mustard-seed  of 
thought  is  a  pregnant  treasury  of  vast  results.  Like  the  germ  in 
Egyptian  tombs,  its  vitality  never  perishes,  and  its  fruit  will  spring 
up  after  it  has  been  buried  for  long  ages.  To  the  superficial  eye, 
the  plain  of  modern  history  is  merely  an  arena  of  battle  and  treaty, 
colonization  and  revolution.  To  the  student,  this  modern  history, 
so  diversified  and  mutable,  indicates  more  than  this.  Luther  and 
Cromwell,  Pilgrim  Rock  and  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  are 
the  results  of  an  invisible  but  mighty  power,  —  a  levelling  and 
exalting  power,  —  a  power  which,  with  no  mere  Cyclopean  effort, 
no  fitful  iEtna  convulsion,  but  with  silent  throbbings,  like  some 
great  tidal  force  in  nature,  is  slowly  undermining  all  falsehood, 
and  heaving  the  mass  of  humanity  upwards.  But  to  dwell  upon 
the  power  of  knowledge,  intellect,  thought,  is  to  run  into  trite 
declamation.  The  scholar  who  has  wrung  this  power  in  toil  and 
sacrifice  knows  it  full  well.  He  sees  it,  in  secret  places,  distilling 
as  the  dew,  and  dropping  as  the  gentle  rain  from  heaven,  and 
everywhere  diffusing  its  potent  spell.  He  experiences  its  superi- 
ority over  nature  and  brute  force.  He  knows  its  conquests  in  the 
past  and  in  the  future. 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


209 


THE  PALL  OF  SWITZERLAND.  —  S.  Smith. 

AMiDsr  all  the  enormities  of  the  French  revolution,  no  one  cir* 
cumstance,  perhaps,  has  excited  such  general  sympathy  and  indig- 
nation as  the  fall  of  Switzerland.  With  the  name  of  Switzerland 
have  been  connected,  from  our  earliest  years,  all  the  worthy  feel- 
ings of  the  heart,  and  all  the  exquisite  beauties  of  nature,  all  that 
the  eye' of  taste  or  the  soul  of  benevolence  could  require.  A  race 
of  brave,  and  happy,  and  good  men  animated  her  solemn  rocks  and 
glens ;  the  climbing  step  of  Freedom  had  scanned  the  summit  of 
the  mountains ;  the  unwearied  hand  of  labor  had  drawn  from  the 
barren  rock  sustenance  for  man ;  the  peasant  with  his  plough,  and 
his  sword,  and  his  book,  was  at  once  a  tiller  of  the  earth,  a  soldier, 
and  a  Christian.  Happiness  never  was  more  complete ;  imagina- 
tion could  not  paint  a  more  enviable  lot  upon  earth,  or  could  the 
earth  afford  it.  For  six  hundred  years  they  had  remained  firm  as 
their  native  mountains,  amidst  all  the  convulsions  of  Europe  ;  for 
two  hundred  years  they  had  hardly  drawn  the  sword,  or  never 
drawn  it  but  to  conquer. 

Into  these  hallowed  retreats,  in  the  midst  of  a  solemn  truce,  in 
spite  of  the  strict  neutrality  observed  by  the  Swiss,  and  the  solemn 
and  repeated  promises  of  their  own  government,  burst  the  common 
enemies  of  mankind,  hot  from  the  carnage  and  reeking  with  the 
blood  of  other  nations.  They  came  to  no  new  work  of  horror ; 
they  had  murdered  other  innocents,  and  pillaged  other  temples, 
and  wasted  other  lands.  They  could  dye  the  silvered  hair  of  the 
aged  man  with  his  own  blood;  they  could  curse  the  tears  of 
women,  and  dash  down  the  tender  child  as  it  lifted  its  meek  eyes 
for  mercy. 

In  the  midst  of  such  horrid  scenes  as  these,  many  actions  of 
heroic  valor  characterized  the  last  days  of  Switzerland ;  and  she 
died  with  her  face  ever  turned  to  the  enemy,  slowly  yielding,  and 
fiercely  struggling  to  the  last.  At  Oberland,  an  old  peasant  was 
observed  in  arms,  fighting  amidst  his  three  children  and  his  seven 
grandchildren ;  they  sustained  the  combat  with  inconceivable 
bravery,  calling  upon  each  other  by  name,  tenderly ;  the  children 
18* 


210  SPECIMENS  OF 

thronging  about  the  old  man,  and  guarding  with  their  maniy  limbs 
the  hoary  head  01  their  parent.  They  were  all  murdered ;  and  in 
a  moment  of  time  this  valiant  race  was  blotted  from  the  book  of 
living  men ! 

The  vengeance  which  the  French  took  of  the  Swiss,  for  their 
determined  opposition  to  the  invasion  of  their  country,  was  decisive 
and  terrible.  The  history  of  Europe  can  afford  no  parallel  of  such 
cruelty.  To  dark  ages,  and  the  most  barbarous  nations  of  the 
East,  we  must  turn  in  vain.  The  soldiers,  dispersed  over  the 
country,  carried  fire  and  sword  and  robbery  into  the  most  tran- 
quil and  hidden  valleys  of  Switzerland.  From  the  depth  of  sweet 
retreats  echoed  the  shrieks  of  murdered  men,  stabbed  in  their 
humble  dwellings,  under  the  shadow  of  the  high  mountains,  in  the 
midst  of  those  scenes  of  nature  which  make  solemn  and  pure  the 
secret  thought  of  man,  and  appal  him  with  the  majesty  of  God. 
The  flying  peasants  saw,  in  the  midst  of  the  night,  their  cottages,, 
their  implements  of  husbandry,  and  the  hopes  of  the  future  year 
expiring  in  one  cruel  conflagration. 

The  Swiss  was  a  simple  peasant;  the  French  are  a  mightj 
people,  combined  for  the  regeneration  of  Europe.  0,  Europe 
what  dost  thou  owe  to  this  mighty  people  ?  —  dead  bodies,  ruinou 
heaps,  broken  hearts,  endless  confusion,  and  unutterable  woe  !  B 
this  mighty  people  the  Swiss  have  lost  their  country ;  that  countr 
which  they  loved  so  well,  that,  if  they  heard  but  the  simple  son; 
of  their  childhood,  tears  fell  down  every  manly  face,  and  the  heart 
of  intrepid  soldiers  sobbed  Avith  grief! 


UNLAWFUL  MILITARY  COMBINATIONS.  —  J.  McLean. 

An  obedience  to  the  laws  is  the  first  duty  of  every  citizen.  3 
lies  at  the  foundation  of  our  noble  political  structure ;  and  wh( 
this  great  principle  shall  be  departed  from,  with  the  public  san 
tion,  the  moral  influence  of  our  government  must  terminate. 

If  there  be  any  one  line  of  policy  in  which  all  political  parti 
agree,  it  is  that  we  should  keep  aloof  from  the  agitations  of  oth 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


211 


governments;  that  we  shall  not  intermingle  our  national  concerns 
with  theirs ;  and  much  more,  that  our  citizens  shall  abstain  from 
acts  which  lead  the  subjects  of  other  governments  to  violence  and 
bloodshed. 

A  government  is  justly  held  responsible  for  the  acts  of  its  citi- 
zens. And  if  this  government  be  unable  or  unwilling  to  restrain 
our  citizens  from  acts  of  hostility  against  a  friendly  power,  such 
power  may  hold  this  nation  answerable  —  declare  war  against  it. 
Every  citizen  is,  therefore,  bound  by  the  regard  he  has  for  his 
country,  by  his  reverence  for  its  laws,  and  by  the  calamitous  conse- 
quences of  war,  to  exert  his  influence  in  suppressing  the  unlawful 
enterprises  of  our  citizens  against  any  foreign  and  friendly  power. 

History  affords  no  example  of  a  nation  or  people  that  uniformly 
took  part  in  the  internal  commotions  of  ether  governments  which 
did  not  bring  ruin  upon  themselves.  These  pregnant  examples 
should  guard  us  against  a  similar  policy,  which  must  lead  to  a  sim- 
ilar result.  A  war  with  a  powerful  nation,  with  whom  we  have 
the  most  extensive  relations,  commercial  and  social,  would  inflict 
lupon  our  country  the  greatest  calamity.  It  would  dry  up  the 
sources  of  its  prosperity,  and  deluge  it  in  blood. 

The  great  principles  of  our  republican  institutions  cannot  be 
propagated  by  the  sword.  This  can  be  done  by  moral  force,  and 
not  physical.  If  we  desire  the  political  regeneration  of  oppressed 
nations,  we  must  show  them  the  simplicity,  the  grandeur  and  the 
freedom,  of  our  own  government.  We  must  recommend  it  to  the 
intelligence  and  virtue  of  other  nations  by  its  elevated  and  enlight- 
ened action,  its  purity,  its  justice,  and  the  protection  it  affords  to 
all  its  citizens,  and  the  liberty  they  enjoy.  And  if,  in  this  respect, 
we  shall  be  faithful  to  the  high  bequests  of  our  fathers,  to  our- 
selves, and  to  posterity,  we  shall  do  more  to  liberalize  other  govern- 
ments, and  emancipate  their  subjects,  than  could  be  accomplished 
by  millions  of  bayonets.  This  moral  power  is  what  tyrants  have 
most  cause  to  dread.  It  addresses  itself  to  the  thoughts  and  the 
judgment  of  men.  ^  No  physical  force  can  arrest  its  progress.  Its 
approaches  are  unseen,  but  its  consequences  are  deeply  felt.  It 
enters  garrisons  most  strongly  fortified,  and  operates  in  the  palaces 


212 


SPECIMENS  OF 


of  kings  and  emperors.  We  should  cherish  this  power,  as  essential 
to  the  preservation  of  our  government,  and  as  the  most  efficient 
means  of  ameliorating  the  political  condition  of  our  race.  And  this 
can  only  be  done  by  a  reverence  for  the  laws,  and  by  the  exercise 
of  an  elevated  patriotism. 

I  invoke,  therefore,  in  behalf  of  the  tribunals  of  justice,  the 
moral  power  of  society.  I  ask  it  to  aid  them  in  suppressing  3 
combination  of  deluded  or  abandoned  citizens,  which  imminently 
threatens  the  peace  and  prosperity  of  the  country.  And  I  have  nc 
fears  that,  when  public  attention  shall  be  roused  on  this  deeplj 
important  subject,  when  the  laws  are  understood  and  the  duties  of 
the  government,  and  when  the  clanger  is  seen  and  properly  appre 
ciated,  there  will  be  an  expression  so  potent,  from  an  enlightenec 
and  patriotic  people,  as  to  suppress  all  combinations  in  violation  of 
the  laws,  and  which  threaten  the  peace  of  the  country. 


AMBIGUITY  OF  SPEECH.  —  R.  Choate. 

Sir,  I  have  been  exceedingly  struck,  while  listening  to  gentle 
men,  with  the  fact  that  while  the  ends  and  objects  at  which  the 
aim  are  all  so  pacific,  their  speeches  are  strewn  and  sown  thick 
broad-cast,  with  so  much  of  the  food  and  nourishment  of  war 
Their  ends  and  objects  are  peace  —  a  treaty  of  peace;  but  thei 
means  and  their  topics  wear  a  certain  incongruous  grimness  0 
aspect.  The  "  bloom  is  on  the  rye; "  but,  as  you  go  near,  you  sc 
bayonet-points  sparkling  beneath,  and  are  fired  upon  by  a  thousan 
men  in  ambush  !  The  end  they  aim  at  is  peace ;  but  the  means  0 
attaining  it  are  an  offensive  and  absurd  threat.  Their  ends  an 
their  objects  are  peace ;  yet  how  full  have  they  stuffed  tl 
speeches  we  have  been  hearing  with  every  single  topic  the  be: 
calculated  to  blow  up  the  passions  of  kindred  races  to  the  feve 
heat  of  battle ! 

I  declare,  sir,  that  while  listening  to  senators  whose  sineerit 
and  patriotism  I  cannot  doubt,  and  to  this  conflict  of  topics  ai 
objects  with  which  they  half  bewilder  me,  I  was  forcibly  remindf 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


213 


of  that  consummate  oration  in  the  streets  of  Rome,  by  one  who 
"  came  to  bury  Cassar,  not  to  praise  him."  He  did  not  wish  to  stir 
up  anybody  to  mutiny  and  rage  !  0,  no !  He  would  not  have  a 
finger  lifted  against  the  murderers  of  his  and  the  people's  friend  — 
not  he  !  He  feared  he  wronged  them  ;  yet  who  has  not  admired  the 
exquisite  address  and  the  irresistible  effect  with  which  he  returns 
igain  and  again  to  "  sweet  Caesar's  wounds,  poor,  poor  dumb 
nouths,"  and  put  a  tongue  in  each,  —  to  the  familiar  mantle,  first 
;vorn  on  the  evening  of  the  day  his  great  friend  overcame  the 
Nervii,  now  pierced  by  the  cursed  steel  of  Cassius,  of  the  envious 
]asca,  of  the  well-beloved  Brutus,  —  to  his  legacy  of  drachmas, 
.rbors  and  orchards,  to  the  people  of  Rome,  whose  friend,  whose 
lenefactor,  he  shows  to  them,  ail  marred  by  traitors,  —  till  the 
10b  break  away  from  his  words  of  more  than  fire,  with : 

""We  will  be  revenged  !  — Revenge  !    About ! 
Seek — burn  —  fire  —  kill  —  slay  !  — let  not  a  traitor  live  !  " 

.ntony  was  insincere.  Senators  are  wholly  sincere.  Yet  the 
mtrast  between  their  pacific  professions  and  that  revelry  of  bel- 
gerent  topics  and  sentiments  which  rings  and  flashes  in  their 
>eeches  here  half  suggests  a  doubt-  to  me,  sometimes,  whether 
ey  or  I  perfectly  know  what  they  mean  or  what  they  desire, 
ley  promise  to  show  you  a  garden,  and  you  look  up  to  see  noth- 
g  but  a  wall  "  with  dreadful  faces  thronged,  and  fiery  arms !  " 
ley  propose  to  teach  you  how  peace  is  to  be  preserved ;  and  they 
« it  so  exquisitely  that  you  go  away  half  inclined  to  issue  letters 
i;  marque  and  reprisal  to-morrow  morning. 
The  proposition  is  peace ;  but  the  audience  rises  and  goes  off 
*jth  a  sort  of  bewildered  and  unpleasing  sensation,  that  if  there 
'  re  a  thousand  men  in  all  America  as  well  disposed  as  the  orator, 
lice  might  be  preserved ;  but  that,  as  the  case  stands,  it  is  just 
8)ut  hopehss !  I  ascribe  it  altogether  to  their  anxious  and  tender 
cicern  for  peace,  that  senators  have  not  a  word  to  say  about  the 
|>d  she  does,  but  only  about  the  dangers  she  is  in.  They  have 
t  love  of  compassion,  not  the  love  of  desire.  Not  a  word  about 
t  countless  blessings  she  scatters  from  her  golden  urn ;  but  only 


214  SPECIMENS  OP 


"  the  pity  of  it,  Iago !  the  pity  of  it !  "  to  think  how  soon  the  dis- 
sonant clangor  of  a  thousand  brazen  throats  may  chase  that  bloom 
from  her  cheek,  — 

"And  Death's  pale  flag  be  quick  advanced  there." 

Sir,  no  one  here  can  say  one  thing  and  mean  another ;  yet  much 
may  be  meant,  and  nothing  directly  said.  "  The  dial  spoke  not, 
but  pointed  fall  upon  the  stroke  of  murder." 


WARS  OF  KINDRED  RACES.  —  W.  Gaston. 

There  is  something  in  the  character  of  a  war  made  upon  the 
people  of  a  country  to  force  them  to  abandon  a  government  which 
they  cherish,  and  to  become  the  subjects  or  associates  of  their 
invaders,  which  necessarily  involves  calamities  beyond  those  inci- 
dent to  ordinary  wars.    Among  us  some  remain  who  remember  the 
horrors  of  the  invasion  of  the  Revolution ;  and  "  others  of  us  have 
hung  with  reverence  on  the  lips  of  narrative  old  age,  as  it  related 
the  interesting  tale."    Such  a  war  is  not  a  contest  between  thos( 
only  who  seek  for  renown  in  military  achievements,  or  the  mors 
humble  mercenaries  "whose  business  'tis  to  die."    It  breaks  ii 
upon  all  the  charities  of  domestic  life,  and  interrupts  all  the  pur- 
suits of  industry.    The  peasant  quits  his  plough,  and  the  mechanic 
is  hurried  from  his  shop,  to  commence,  without  apprenticeship,  th 
exercise  of  the  trade  of  death.    The  irregularity  of  the  resistanc 
which  is  opposed  to  the  invader,  its  occasional  obstinacy  and  occa 
sional  intermission,  provoking  every  bad  passion  of  his  soldiery,  i 
the  excuse  for  plunder,  lust,  and  cruelty.    These  atrocities  exas 
perate  the  sufferers  to  revenge ;  and  every  weapon  which  ange 
can  supply,  and  every  device  which  ingenious  hatred  can  conceivi 
is  used  to  inflict  vengeance  on  the  detested  foe. 

As  there  is  no  anger  so  deadly  as  the  anger  of  a  friend,  there 
no  war  so  ferocious  as  that  which  is  waged  between  men  of  t\ 
same  blood,  and  formerly  connected  by  the  closest  ties  of  affectio 
The  pen  of  the  historian  confesses  its  inability  to  describe,  the  fervT 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


215 


fancy  of  the  poet  cannot  realize,  the  horrors  of  a  civil  war.  This 
invasion  of  Canada  involves  the  miseries  of  both  these  species  of 
war.  It  must  be  that  such  a  war  will  rouse  a  spirit  of  sanguin- 
ary ferocity  that  will  overleap  every  holy  barrier  of  nature  and 
venerable  usage  of  civilization.  Where  will  you  find  an  authenti- 
cated instance  of  this  ferocity,  that  more  instantaneously  compels 
the  shuddering  abhorrence  of  the  heart,  than  the  fact  asserted  by 
my  eloquent  friend  from  New  Hampshire,  —  "the  bayonet  of  the 
brother  has  been  actually  opposed  to  the  breast  of  the  brother  "  ? 
Merciful  Heaven !  that  those  who  have  been  rocked  in  the  same 
cradle  by  the  same  maternal  hand,  who  have  imbibed  the  first 
genial  nourishment  of  infant  existence  from  the  same  blessed 
source,  should  be  forced  to  contend  in  impious  strife  for  the  destruc- 
tion of  that  being  derived  from  their  common  parents !  It  should 
not  be  so !    Every  feeling  of  our  nature  cries  aloud  against  it ! 

Before  we  enter  upon  this  career  of  cold-blooded  massacre,  it 
behooves  us,  by  every  obligation  which  we  owe  to  God,  to  our  fel- 
low-men, and  to  ourselves,  to  be  certain  that  the  right  is  with  us, 
yt  that  the  duty  is  imperative.  If,  in  a  moment  of  excited  feeling, 
we  should  heedlessly  enact  the  fatal  deed  which  consigns  thousands 

the  gallant  and  the  brave  Americans  and  Britons  to  an  igno-* 
ninious  death,  and  should  afterwards  discover  that  the  deed  was 
criminal,  —  that  the  blood  of  the  innocent  is  upon  as,  and  the  cries 
)f  their  fatherless  infants  have  ascended  against  us  to  the  throne 
)f  the  Most  High,  —  how  shall  we  silence  the  reproaches  of  con- 
science, how  atone  for  the  wide-spread  and  irreparable  mischief,  or 
iow  efface  from  the  American  name  the  infamous  stain  that  will 
)e  stamped  upon  it  ? 

Think,  for  a  moment,  sir,  on  the  consequences,  and  deem  it  not 
mworthy  of  you  to  regard  them.  True  courage  shuts  not  its  eyes 
ipon  danger,  or  its  result.  It  views  steadily,  and  calmly  resolves 
vhether  they  ought  to  be  encountered.  Already  has  the  Canadian 
var  a  character  sufficiently  cruel,  as  Newark,  Buffalo  and  Niagara, 
:an  testify.  But  when  the  spirit  of  ferocity  shall  have  been  mad- 
lened  by  the  vapor  steaming  from  the  innocent  blood  that  shall 
tagnate  around  every  depot  of  prisoners,  then  will  it  become  a 


21\3 


SPECIMENS  OF 


war,  not  of  savage,  but  of  demoniac  character.  Your  part  of  it 
may,  perhaps,  be  ably  sustained.  Your  way  through  the  Canadas 
may  be  traced  afar  off  by  the  smoke  of  their  burning  villages. 
Your  path  may  be  marked  by  the  blood  of  their  furious  peasantry. 
You  may  render  your  course  audible  by  the  frantic  shrieks  of  their 
women  and  children.  But  your  own  sacred  soil  will  also  be  the 
scene  of  this  drama  of  fiends.  Your  exposed  and  defenceless  sea- 
board, the  seaboard  of  the  south,  will  invite  a  terrible  vengeance. 
That  seaboard,  which  has  been  shamefully  neglected,  and  is  at  this 
moment  without  protection,  has  been  already  invaded.  But  an 
invasion,  after  the  war  shall  have  assumed  its  unmitigated  form  of 
carnage,  and  woe,  and  wickedness,  must  be  followed  with  horrors 
which  imagination  can  but  faintly  conceive.  I  will  say  to  the  gen- 
tleman from  Pennsylvania  that  when  he  alludes  to  the  probability 
that  an  intestine  foe  may  be  reused  to  assassination  and  brutality, 
he  touches  a  chord  that  vibrates  to  the  very  heart.  I  live  in  a 
state  whose  misfortune  it  is  to  contain  the  materials  out  of  which 
may  be  made  such  a  foe ;  —  a  foe  that  will  be  found  everywhere  — 
in  our  fields,  our  kitchens,  and  our  chambers ;  a  foe,  ignorant, 
degraded  by  habits  of  servitude,  uncurbed  by  moral  restraints, 
whom  no  recollections  of  former  kindness  will  soften,  and  whom 
the  remembrance  of  severity  will  goad  to  frenzy ;  from  whom 
nor  age,  nor  infancy,  nor  beauty,  will  find  reverence  or  pity ;  and 
whose  subjugation  will  be  but  another  word  for  extermination  ! 


EULOGY  UPON  JOHN  C.  CALHOUN.  —  D.  Webster. 

The  eloquence  of  Mr.  Calhoun,  or  the  manner  of  his  exhibitior 
of  his  sentiments  in  public  bodies,  was  part  of  his  intellectual  char- 
acter. It  grew  out  of  the  qualities  of  his  mind.  It  was  plain 
strong,  terse,  condensed,  concise;  sometimes  impassioned  —  still 
always  severe.  Rejecting  ornament,  not  often  seeking  far  fo; 
illustration,  his  power  consisted  in  the  plainness  of  his  propositions 
in  the  closeness  of  his  logic,  and  in  the  earnestness  and  energy  ot 
his  manner.    These  are  the  qualities,  as  I  think,  which  havt 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


217 


enabled  him  through  such  a  long  course  of  years  to  speak  often, 
and  yet  always  command  attention.  His  demeanor  as  a  senator  is 
known  to  us  all,  —  is  appreciated,  venerated  by  us  all.  No  man 
was  more  respectful  to  others ;  no  man  carried  himself  with  greater 
decorum,  no  man  with  superior  dignity.  I  think  there  is  not  one 
of  us  but  felt,  when  he  last  addressed  us  from  his  seat  in  the  sen- 
ate, —  his  form  still  erect,  with  a  voice  by  no  means  indicating 
such  a  degree  of  physical  weakness  as  did,  in  fact,  possess  him, 
with  clear  tones,  and  an  impressive,  and,  I  may  say,  an  imposing 
manner,  —  who  did  not  feel  that  he  might  imagine  that  he  saw 
before  us  a  senator  of  Rome,  when  Rome  survived. 

He  had  the  basis,  the  indispensable  basis,  of  all  high  character ; 
and  that  was,  unspotted  integrity  —  unimpeached  honor  and  char- 
acter. If  he  had  aspirations,  they  were  high,  and  honorable,  and 
noble.  There  was  nothing  grovelling,  or  low,  or  mean,  or  meanly 
selfish,  that-  came  near  the  head  or  the  heart  of  Mr.  Calhoun. 
Firm  in  his  purpose,  perfectly  patriotic  and  honest,  as  I  am  sure 
he  was  in  the  principles  that  he  espoused,  and  in  the  measures 
that  he  defended,  aside  from  that  large  regard  for  that  species  of 
distinction  that  conducted  him  to  eminent  stations  for  the  benefit 
of  the  republic,  I  do  not  believe  he  had  a  selfish  motive  or  selfish 
feeling. 

However  he  may  have  differed  from  others  of  us  in  his  political 
opinions  or  his  political  principles,  those  principles  and  those  opin- 
ions will  now  descend  to  posterity  under  the  sanction  of  a  great 
name.  He  has  lived  long  enough,  he  has  done  enough,  and  he 
has  done  it  so  well,  so  successfully,  so  honorably,  as  to  connect 
himself  for  all  time  with  the  records  of  his  country.  He  is  now 
an  historical  character.  Those  of  us  who  have  known  him  here 
will  find  that  he  has  left  upon  our  minds  and  our  hearts  a  strong 
and  lasting  impression  of  his  person,  his  character,  and  his  public 
performances,  which  while  we  live  will  never  be  obliterated.  We 
Bhall  hereafter,  I  am  sure,  indulge  in  it  as  a  grateful  recollection 
that  we  have  been  his  contemporaries,  —  that  we  have  seen  him,  and 
heard  him,  and  known  him.  We  shall  delight  to  speak  of  him  to 
those  who  are  rising  up  to  fill  our  places.  And,  when  the  time 
19 


213 


SPECIMENS  OF 


shall  come  when  we  ourselves  shall  go,  one  after  another,  in  suc- 
cession, to  our  graves,  we  shall  carry  with  us  a  deep  sense  of  his 
genius  and  character,  his  honor  and  integrity,  his  amiable  deport- 
ment in  private  life,  and  the  purity  of  his  exalted  patriotism. 


THE  ALIEN  BILL.  —  E.  Livingston. 

Whenever  our  laws  manifestly  infringe  the  constitution  under 
which  they  were  made,  the  people  ought  not  to  hesitate  which  they 
should  obey  :  if  we  exceed  our  powers,  we  become  tyrants,  and  our 
acts  have  no  effect.  Thus,  one  of  the  first  effects  of  measures 
such  as  this,  if  they  be  acquiesced  in,  will  be  disaffection  among 
the  states  and  opposition  among  the  people  to  your  government ; 
tumults,  violations,  and  a  recurrence  to  first  revolutionary  princi-* 
pies :  if  they  are  submitted  to>  the  consequences  will  be  worse. 
After  such  manifest  violation  of  the  principles  of  our  constitution, 
the  form  will  not  long  be  sacred,  —  presently  every  vestige  of  it 
will  be  lost  and  swallowed  up  in  the  gulf  of  despotism.  But, 
should  the  evil  proceed  no  further  than  the  execution  of  the  pres- 
ent law,  what  a  fearful  picture  will  our  country  present !  The 
system  of  espionage  thus  established,  the  country  will  swarm  with 
information-spies,  delators,  and  all  that  odious  tribe  that  breed  in 
the  sunshine  of  despotic  power,  that  suck  the  blood  of  the  unfortu- 
nate, and  creep  into  the  bosom  of  sleeping  innocence  only  to  awaken 
it  with  a  burning  wound.  The  hours  of  the  most  unsuspecting 
confidence,  the  intimacies  of  friendship,  or  the  recesses  of  domestic 
retirement,  afford  no  security ;  the  companion  in  whom  you  must 
trust,  the  friend  in  whom  you  must  confide,  the  domestic  who  waits 
in  your  chamber,  are  all  tempted  to  betray  your  imprudence  or 
guardless  follies,  to  misrepresent  your  words,  to  convey  them,  dis- 
torted by  calumny,  to  the  secret  tribunal  where  jealousy  presides, 
where  fear  officiates  as  accuser,  where  suspicion  is  the  only  evi- 
dence that  is  heard. 

Compared  to  the  breach  of  our  constitution,  and  the  establish- 
ment of  arbitrary  power,  every  other  topic  is  trifling ;  arguments 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


219 


of  convenience  sink  into  nothing ;  the  preservation  of  wealth,  the 
increase  of  commerce,  however  weighty  on  other  occasions,  here 
lose  their  importance,  when  the  fundamental  principles  of  freedom 
are  in  danger.  I  am  tempted  to  borrow  the  impressive  language 
of  a  foreign  speaker,  and  exclaim,  "  Perish  our  commerce,  let  our 
constitution  live ; "  perish  our  riches,  let  our  freedom  live.  This 
would  be  the  sentiment  of  every  American,  were  the  alternative 
between  submission  and  wealth ;  but  here  it  is  proposed  to  destroy 
our  wealth,  in  order  *to  ruin  our  commerce  ;  —  not  in  order  to  pre- 
serve our  constitution,  but  to  break  it ;  not  to  secure  our  freedom, 
but  to  abandon  it. 

Let  me  entreat  gentlemen  seriously  to  reflect,  before  they  pro- 
nounce the  decisive  vote,  that  gives  the  first  open  stab  to  the  prin- 
ciples of  our  government.  Our  mistaken  zeal,  like  the  patriarch  of 
old,  has  bound  one  victim  ;  it  lies  at  the  foot  of  the  altar  ;  a  sacri- 
fice of  the  first-born  offspring  of  freedom  is  proposed  by  those  who 
gave  it  birth.  The  hand  is  already  raised  to  strike,  and  nothing, 
I  fear,  but  the  voice  of  Heaven,  can  arrest  the  impious  blow. 

Let  not  gentlemen  flatter  themselves  that  the  fervor  of  the 
moment  can  make  the  people  insensible  to  these  aggressions.  It 
is  an  honest,  noble  warmth,  produced  by  an  indignant  sense  of 
injury.  It  will  never,  I  trust,  be  extinct,  while  there  is  a  proper 
cause  to  excite  it.  But  the  people  of  America,  though  watchful 
against  foreign  aggressions,  are  not  careless  of  domestic  encroach- 
ment ;  they  are  as  jealous  of  their  liberties  at  home  as  of  the  power 
and  prosperity  of  their  country  abroad ;  they  will  awake  to  a  sense 
of  their  danger.  Do  not  let  us  flatter  ourselves,  then,  that  these 
measures  will  be  unobserved,  or  disregarded;  do  not  let  us  be  told 
that  we  excite  a  fervor  against  foreign  aggressions  only  to  establish 
tyranny  at  home ;  that,  like  the  arch  traitor,  we  cry  "  Hail, 
Columbia  !  "  at  the  moment  we  are  betraying  her  to  destruction ; 
that  we  sing  out  "  Happy  land ! "  when  we  are  plunging  it  in  ruin 
and  disgrace ;  and  that  we  are  absurd  enough  to  call  ourselves 
"  free  and  enlightened,"  while  we  advocate  principles  that  would 
have  disgraced  the  age  of  Gothic  barbarity,  and  establish  a  code 
compared  to  which  the  ordeal  is  wise,  and  the  trial  by  battel  is 
merciful  and  just ! 


220 


SPECIMENS  OF 


THE  FUTURE  AGE  OF  LITERATURE.  —  H.  Bushncll. 

I  believe  in  a  future  age,  yet  to  be  revealed,  which  is  to  be  dis- 
tinguished from  all  others  as  the  godlike  age,  —  an  age  not  ot 
universal  education  simply,  or  universal  philanthropy,  or  external 
freedom,  or  political  well-being,  but  a  day  of  reciprocity  and  free 
intimacy  between  all  souls  and  God.  Learning  and  religion,  the 
scholar  and  the  Christian,  will  not  be  divided  as  they  have  been. 
The  universities  will  be  filled  with  a  profound  spirit  of  religion, 
and  the  bene  wrasse  will  be  a  fountain  of  inspiration  to  all  the 
investigations  of  study  and  the  creations  of  genius.  And  it  will 
be  found  that  Christianity  has,  at  last,  developed  a  new  literary 
era  —  the  era  of  religious  love. 

Hitherto,  the  love  of  passion  has  been  the  central  fire  of  the 
world's  literature.  The  dramas,  epics,  odes,  novels,  and  even  his- 
tories, have  spoken  to  the  world's  heart  chiefly  through  this  passion, 
and  through  this  have  been  able  to  get  their  answer.  Hence  there 
gathers  round  the  lover  a  tragic  interest,  and  we  hang  upon  his 
destiny  as  if  some  natural  charm  or  spell  were  in  it.  '  But  this 
passion  of  love,  which  has  hitherto  been  the  staple  of  literature,  is 
only  a  crude  symbol  in  the  life  of  nature,  by  which  God  designs  to 
interpret,  and  also  to  foreshadow,  the  higher  love  of  religion, — 
Nature's  gentle  Beatrice,  who  leaves  her  image  in  the  youthful 
Dante,  and  is  therefore  to  attend  him  afterwards  in  the  spirit- 
flight  of  song,  and  be  his  guide  upward  through  the  wards  of  para- 
dise to  the  shining  mount  of  God.  What,  then,  are  we  to  think, 
but  that  he  will  some  time  bring  us  up  out  of  the  literature  of  the 
lower  love,  into  that  of  the  higher;  that,  as  the  age  of  passion 
yields,  at  last,  to  the  age  of  reason,  so  the  crude  love  of  instinct 
shall  give  place  to  the  pure  intellectual  love  of  God  ?  And  then, 
around  that  nobler  love,  or  out  of  it,  shall  arise  a  new  body  of  lit- 
erature, as  much  more  gifted  as  the  inspiration  is  purer  and  more 
intellectual.  Beauty,  truth  and  worship,  song,  science  and  duty, 
will  all  be  unfolded  together  in  the  common  love  of  God. 

Society  must,  of  course,  receive  beauty  into  its  character  and 
feeling,  such  as  can  be  satisfied  no  longer  with  the  old  barbaric 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


221 


themes  of  war  and  passion.  To  be  a  scholar  and  not  to  be  a  Chris- 
tian, to  produce  the  fruits  of  genius  without  a  Christian  inspiration, 
will  no  longer  be  thought  of ;  and  religion,  heretofore  looked  upon 
as  a  ghostly  constraint  upon  life,  it  will  now  be  acknowledged  is 
the  only  efficient  fertilizer  of  genius,  as  it  is  the  only  real  emanci- 
pator of  man. 


THE  BATTLE  OF  BUNKER  HILL.  —  H.  A.  S.  Dearborn. 

On  Banker's  ever-memorable  heights  was  first  displa}7ed  the 
lofty  spirit  of  invincible  patriotism  which  impelled  the  adventurous 
soldier  to  brave  the  severest  hardships  of  the  tented  field,  and 
endure  in  northern  climes  the  rugged  toils  of  war,  uncanopied  from 
the  boreal  storm  and  rude  inclemencies  of  Canadian  winters.  On 
that  American  Thermopylae,  where,  wrapt  in  the  dim  smoke  of 
wanton  conflagration,  fought  the  assembled  sovereigns  of  their 
native  soil,  the  everlasting  bulwarks  of  freedom,  and  thrice  rolled 
back  the  tremendous  tide  of  war,  was  evinced  that  unconquer- 
able intrepidity,  that  national  ardor  and  meritorious  zeal,  which 
secured  victory  on  the  plains  of  Saratoga,  stormed  the  ramparts  of 
Yorktown,  and  bore  the  bannered  eagle  in  triumph  from  the  shores 
of  the  Atlantic  to  the  furthest  confines  of  the  wilderness. 

By  that  destructive  battle  were  awakened  the  most  exalted  fac- 
ulties of  the  mind.  Reason,  unrestrained,  burst  forth  in  the  plen- 
itude of  its  effulgence.  Man,  regenerated  and  disenthralled,  beat 
down  the  walls  of  slavish  incarceration,  and  trampled  on  the  broken 
chains  of  regal  bondage.  The  vast  resources  of  an  emancipated 
people  were  called  into  generous  exertion.  An  enthusiastic  spirit 
of  independence  glowed  in  every  breast,  and  spread  the  uncontam- 
inated  sentiments  of  emulative  freemen  over  the  broad  extent  of  an 
exasperated  republic.  The  united  energies  of  a  virtuous  people 
were  strenuously  directed  to  the  effectual  accomplishment  of  na- 
tional independence.  During  those  portentous  times  were  achieved 
the  most  honorable  deeds  which  are  inscribed  on  the  ever-during 
records  of  fame.  Stimulated  by  accumulating  wrongs,  and  elated 
by  the  purest  feelings  of  anticipated  success,  no  disastrous  events 
19* 


222 


SPECIMENS  OP 


could  check  the  progress  of  their  arms,  —  no  fascinating  allure- 
ments deflect  them  from  that  honorable  path  which  they  had  sworn 
to  pursue,  or  perish  in  the  hazardous  attempt.  Inspired  by  the 
guardian  genius  of  Liberty,  no  barriers  could  oppose  their  impetu- 
ous career.  Like  the  "  Pontic  Sea,  whose  icy  current  and  compul- 
sive course  ne'er  feels  retiring  ebb,"  the  irrefluent  tide  of  freedom 
rolls  unrestrained.  By  the  courageous  virtue  of  our  illustrious 
heroes  were  secured  those  inestimable  blessings  which  we  have 
since  enjoyed.  To  the  warriors  and  statesmen  of  the  Revolution 
are  we  indebted  for  all  those  distinguished  privileges  which  place 
the  citizens  of  the  United  States  beyond  the  predatory  vengeance 
of  ruthless  oppression.  This  invaluable  inheritance  is  the  prize  of 
slaughter  acquired  by  the  lives  of  contending  freemen,  secured 
with  the  blood  of  battling  patriots. 


WAR  PREFERABLE  TO  SUBMISSION.  —  /.  C.  Calhoun. 

I  only  know  of  one  principle  to  make  a  nation  great,  —  to  pro- 
duce in  this  country  not  the  form,  but  real  spirit,  of  union,  —  and 
that  is,  to  protect  every  citizen  in  the  lawful  pursuit  of  his  business. 
He  will  then  feel  that  he  is  backed  by  the  government,  that  its 
arm  is  his  arms,  and  will  rejoice  in  its  increased  strength  and  pros- 
perity. Protection  and  patriotism  are  reciprocal.  This  is  the 
road  that  all  great  nations  have  trod.  I  am  not  versed  in  this 
calculating  policy,  and  will  not,  therefore,  pretend  to  estimate  in 
dollars  and  cents  the  value  of  national  independence  or  national 
affection. 

The  gentleman  from  Virginia  has  not  failed  to  touch  on  the 
calamity  of  war,  that  fruitful  source  of  declamation,  by  which 
pity  becomes  the  advocate  of  cowardice ;  but  I  know  not  what  we 
have  to  do  with  that  subject.  If  the  gentleman  desires  to  repress 
the  gallant  ardor  of  our  countrymen  by  such  topics,  let  me  inform 
him  that  true  courage  regards  only  the  cause,  that  it  is  just  and 
necessary,  and  that  it  despises  the  pain  and  danger  of  war.  If  he 
really  wishes  to  promote  the  cause  of  humanity,  let  his  eloquence 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


223 


be  addressed  to  Lord  Wellesley  or  Mr.  Percival,  and  not  the 
American  Congress.  Tell  them,  if  they  persist  in  such  daring 
insult  and  injury  to  a  neutral  nation,  that,  however  inclined  to 
peace,  it  will  be  bound  in  honor  and  interest  to  resist ;  that  their 
patience  and  benevolence,  however  great,  will  be  exhausted ;  that 
the  calamity  of  war  will  ensue,  and  that  they,  in  the  opinion  of 
wounded  humanity,  will  be  answerable  for  all  its  devastation  and 
misery.  Let  melting  pity,  a  regard  to  the  interests  of  humanity, 
stay  the  hand  of  injustice,  and,  my  life  on  it,  the  gentleman  will 
not  find  it  difficult  to  call  off  his  country  from  the  bloody  scenes 
of  war.  We  are  next  told  of  the  dangers  of  war !  I  believe  we 
are  all  ready  to  acknowledge  its  hazards  and  accidents ;  but  I  can- 
not think  we  have  any  extraordinary  danger  to  contend  with,  —  at 
least,  so  much  as  to  warrant  an  acquiescence  in  the  injuries  we 
have  received ;  on  the  contrary,  I  believe  no  war  can  be  less  dan- 
gerous to  internal  peace  or  national  existence. 

I  think  a  regular  force,  raised  for  a  period  of  actual  hostilities, 
cannot  be  called  a  standing  army.  There  is  a  just  distinction 
between  such  a  force  and  one  raised  as  a  peace  establishment. 
Whatever  may  be  the  composition  of  the  latter,  I  hope  the  former 
will  consist  of  some  of  the  best  materials  of  the  country.  The 
ardent  patriotism  of  our  young  men,  and  the  reasonable  bounty  in 
land  which  is  proposed  to  be  given,  will  impel  them  to  join  their 
country's  standard,  and  to  fight  her  battles ;  they  will  not  forget 
the  citizen  in  the  soldier,  and,  in  obeying  their  officer,  learn  to 
contemn  their  constitution.  In  our  officers  and  soldiers  we  will 
find  patriotism  no  less  pure  and  ardent  than  in  the  private  citizen. 

In  speaking  of  Canada,  the  gentleman  introduced  the  name  of 
Montgomery  with  much  feeling  and  interest.  Sir,  there  is  danger 
in  that  name  to  his  argument.  It  is  sacred  to  heroism !  It  is 
indignant  of  submission !  This  calls  my  memory  back  to  the  time 
of  our  Revolution  —  to  the  Congress  of  74  and  75.  Suppose  a 
speaker  of  that  day  had  risen  and  urged  all  the  arguments  which 
we  have  heard  on  this  subject ;  had  told  that  Congress,  "  Your 
contest  is  about  the  right  of  laying  a  tax ;  the  attempt  on  Canada 
has  nothing  to  do  with  it ;  the  war  will  be  expensive ;  danger  and 


224 


SPECIMENS  OF 


devastation  will  overspread  our  country,  and  the,  power  of  Great 
Britain  is  irresistible."  With  what  sentiments,  think  you,  would 
such  doctrines  have  been  then  received  ?  Happy  for  us,  they  had 
no  force  at  that  period  of  our  country's  glory.  Had  they  been  then 
acted  on,  this  hall  would  never  have  witnessed  a  great  nation  con- 
vened to  deliberate  for  the  general  good  ;  a  mighty  empire,  with 
prouder  prospects  than  any  nation  the  sun  ever  shone  on,  would 
not  have  risen  in  the  west.  No !  we  would  have  been  vile,  sub- 
jected colonies,  governed  by  that  imperious  rod  which  Britain 
holds  over  her  distant  provinces. 


ADAMS  AND  JEFFERSON".  —  E.  Everett. 

No,  fellow-citizens,  we  dismiss  not  Adams  and  Jefferson  to  the 
chambers  of  forgetfulness  and  death.  What  we  admired,  and 
prized,  and  venerated  in  them,  can  never  die,  or,  dying,  be  for- 
gotten. I  had  almost  said  that  they  are  now  beginning  to  live  ; 
to  live  that  life  of  unimpaired  influence,  of  unclouded  fame,  of 
unmingled  happiness,  for  which  their  talents  and  services  were 
destined.  They  were  of  the  select  few  the  least  portion  of  whose 
life  dwells  in  their  physical  existence ;  whose  hearts  have  watched 
while  their  senses  slept ;  whose  souls  have  grown  up  into  a  higher 
being ;  whose  pleasure  is  to  be  useful ;  whose  wealth  is  an  unblem- 
ished reputation ;  who  respire  the  breath  of  honorable  fame ;  who 
have  deliberately  and  consciously  put  what  is  called  life  to  hazard, 
that  they  may  live  in  the  hearts  of  those  who  come  after.  Such 
men  do  not,  cannot  die.  To  be  cold,  and  motionless,  and  breath- 
less, —  to  feel  not  and  speak  not,  —  this  is  not  the  end  of  existence  ■ 
to  the  men  who  have  breathed  their  spirits  into  the  institutions  of 
their  country,  who  have  stamped  their  characters  on  the  pillars  of 
the  age,  who  have  poured  their  hearts'  blood  into  the  channels  of 
the  public  prosperity.  Tell  me,  ye  who  tread  the  sods  of  yon 
sacred  height,  is  Warren  dead  ?  Can  you  not  still  see  him,  not 
pale  and  prostrate,  the  blood  of  his  gallant  heart  pouring  out  of  his 
ghastly  wound,  but  moving  resplendent  over  the  field  of  honor,  with 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


225 


the  rose  of  heaven  upon  his  cheek,  and  the  fire  of  liberty  in  his  eye  ? 
Tell  me,  ye  who  make  your  pious  pilgrimage  to  the  shades  of  Ver- 
non, is  Washington  indeed  shut  up  in  that  cold  and  narrow  house  ? 
That  which  made  these  men,  and  men  like  these,  cannot  die.  The 
hand  that  traced  the  charter  of  independence  is  indeed  motionless, 
the  eloquent  lips  that  sustained  it  are  hushed;  but  the  lofty 
•pirits  that  conceived,  resolved,  matured,  maintained  it,  and  which 
done,  to  such  men,  "  make  it  life  to  live,"  —  these  cannot  expire  : 

"  These  shall  resist  the  empire  of  decay, 
When  time  is  o'er,  and  worlds  have  passed  away; 
Cold  in  the  dust  the  perished  heart  may  lie, 
But  that  which  warmed  it  once  can  never  die." 


RELIEF  OF  THE  SURVIVORS  OF  THE  REVOLUTION.  —  T.  Burgess. 

Permit  me,  then,  to  request  each  gentleman  of  this  committee 
o  look  at  this  provision  for  the  survivors  of  this  army,  and  then 
d  look  at  the  kind,  the  amount,  and  the  manner  of  their  payment, 
n  what  country  or  age  of  the  world,  in  modern  times,  was  ever, 
efore  this,  such  an  army  kept  in  the  field  five  years  at  a  current 
xpense  of  little  more  than  two  millions  of  dollars  ?  Place  over 
gainst  this  sum  in  the  fiscal  accounts  of  the  nation  the  one  hun- 
red  and  twenty  millions  expended  in  the  three  years'  war  of 
812,  and  in  the  immense  difference  of  these  two  sums  you  will  be 
labled,  as  if  aided  by  a  glass,  to  catch  some  faint  outline  of  those 
mes  when  a  Revolutionary  soldier  fought  your  battles  for  sixty 
lillings  per  month,  and  while  travelling  home  paid  seventy-five 
)llars  for  a  dinner.  Examine  the  account.  A  fearful  balance 
ill  be  found  standing  against  the  nation  in  the  forum  of  con- 
ience.  Wipe  it  off,  I  pray  of  you,  by  passing  the  provisions  of 
is  bill  to  our  credit  in  that  ever-during  tribuual.  Suffer  not  the 
lpartial  adjudication  of  history  to  be  there  recorded  against  us 
ou  all  must  recollect  the  self-devotion  of  that  young  hero  of 
alestine,  who,  though  fainting  with  thirst,  yet  refused  to  taste 
o  waters  of  his  native  spring,  presented  to  him  by  three  of  hia 


228 


SPECIMENS  OP 


youthful  warriors,  because  they  had  put  their  lives  in  their  hands, 
and  cut  their  way  through  an  enemy's  camp,  to  obtain  it.  "  As 
God  liveth,  it  is  your  blood,"  exclaimed  the  generous  chieftain; 
"  I  may  not  drink  of  it."  This  money  in  our  treasury  is,  sir,  the 
blood  of  these  men.  Give  it  back  to  them  !  It  will  not  prosper 
in  our  hands. 

If,  notwithstanding  these  things,  it  should  be  said  that  this 
account  has  been  compromised  with  these  men,  and  ultimately  set- 
tled, let  it,  if  you  please,  be  so  considered ;  but  do  not  forget  the 
different  results  of  this  compromise.    About  the  close  of  the  war, 
the  whole  national  debt,  —  all  government  had  borrowed  of  for- 
eigners, all  they  had  borrowed  of  citizens,  all  the  United  States 
owed  to  the  several  states,  all  they  owed  to  the  army,  —  as  by 
Madison,  Hamilton  and  Ellsworth,  is  reported  to  Congress,  in  their 
address  to  the  states,  amounted  to  forty-two  millions  three  hundred 
and  seventy-five  dollars.    What  would  the  amount  have  been,  had 
you  paid  your  armies  in  silver  and  gold  ?    What,  had  you 
redeemed  your  two  hundred  millions  of  continental  money,  hun- 
dred for  hundred,  in  Spanish  milled  dollars?    The  governmenl 
saved  some  portion  of  the  immense  difference  —  how  ?    By  nego- 
tiations—  with  whom?    Those  men,  who,  in  the  cabinet,  conducted  , 
our  glorious  Revolution,  are  worthy  to  be  held  in  everlasting  veil  . 
eration.    Let  us,  sir,  from  the  savings  made  by  the  economics' 
negotiations  of  those  clays,  when  the  poverty  and  not  the  will  of  th< 
government  consented,  draw  some  fair  and  honorable  provision  fbi 
this  venerable  remnant  of  the  Revolutionary  army ;  and,  attentiv 
to  that  voice  of  national  magnanimity,  calling  to  us  from  ever 
region  of  our  country,  make  one  redeeming  effort,  now,  in  thi 
times  of  maturity  and  abundance,  to  soften  the  rigor  of  those  trans 
actions,  which  grew  up  under  a  cold  and  unpropitious  influence,  ii 
the  years  of  oppressed  and  parsimonious  minority. 

Let  us,  however,  give  up  this  question  to  the  cavils  of  debate 
and  allow  that  we  owe  these  men  nothing  ;  that  in  settlement  wit 
them  we  saved  nothing;  that  we  have  paid  them,  to  the  full,  th 
amount  of  their  wages,  and  in  a  manner,  too,  according  to  th 
literal  terms  of  the  contract.    Between  such  an  army  and  3uch 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


227 


nation  are  there  not  some  higher  and  holier  feelings  than  those 
resulting  from  the  gross  working-day  relations  of  mere  debt  and 
credit  ?  Few  men  live  now  who  lived  in  those  days  when  first 
commenced  those  higher  relations,  now  existing,  between  this  army 
and  this  country,  —  few,  I  say,  whose  memory  fully  comprehends 
the  stormy  years  of  our  Revolution,  and  the  halcyon  days  of  our 
prosperity-.  Indeed,  since  this  provision  was  laid  on  the  table,  two 
men  have  left  the  world,  whose  illustrious  lives  did,  like  the  bright 
bow  of  heaven,  touch  the  two  extremes  of  this  varied  ^horizon. 
They  owed  their  glory  to  the  darkness  of  its  clouds,  their  lustre  to 
the  brightness  of  its  sunshine.  Enough,  however,  live,  who  do 
know  that  there  never  was  before  such  an  army,  such  a  service, 
such  a  result. 

Without  this  army  our  Revolution  had  never  been  achieved. 
Instead  of  "  thus  sitting,  thus  consulting,"  thus,  in  all  the  pride 
and  power  of  self-government,  we  had  to  this  hour  been  the  mere 
appurtenances  of  foreign  empire,  dragging  after  us  the  weary  chain 
of  colonial  dependence.  The  enterprising  trade  of  your  fathers 
was  confined  to  the  waters  and  the  ports  of  Great  Britain.  This 
army  conquered  for  you  the  freedom  of  the  seas  and  the  commerce 
of  the  world.  They,  too,  conquered  for  you  the  lands  from  almost 
the  waters  of  the  Mexican  Gulf  to  the  head-springs  of  the  Missis- 
sippi, and  thus  finally  brought  into  your  acquisition  your  whole 
present  territory,  extending  over  the  broad  breast  of  the  continent, 
from  ocean  to  ocean.  What  a  wilderness  of  wealth !  What  a 
teeming  parent  of  populous  and  powerful  states  !  The  old  colonies 
were  mere  separate  colonies.  The  Revolution  united  their  hands, 
and  formed  them  into  a  political  brotherhood.  This  army  sus- 
tained that  union,  placed  us  on  the  broad  basis  of  independence, 
and  we  are,  by  their  toils  and  jeopardies,  now  a  nation,  among  the 
most  efficient  and  prosperous.  Does  no  spirit  of  gratitude  call  on 
this  nation  to  remember  and  to  relieve  the  survivors  of  that  army, 
now,  as  they  are  "  old,  and  weary  with  service  "  ?  I  pray  of  you 
let  their  country  give  them  this  one  look  of  kindness,  pour  this  one 
beam  of  gladness  on  the  desolate  twilight  of  their  days  ! 

Does  anjf  one  doubt  whether  the  spirit  of  the  nation  will  go 


228 


SPECIMENS  OF 


along  with  us,  in  making  this  provision  ?  Why,  when  that  vener- 
able man,  now  standing  in  the  canvas  yonder  on  your  wall,  two 
years  ago  stood  in  his  proper  person  on  this  floor,  the  whole  nation 
seemed  to  spring  forward  to  give  him  the  hand  of  gratulation. 
Was  this  done  because  he  was  the  noble  descendant  of  a  long  line 
of  illustrious  ancestors,  a  warrior  and  a  patriot  in  another  country? 
Was  it  not  rather  because  he  was  a  soldier  of  our  Revolutionary 
army  ?  When  he  travelled  from  city  to  city,  and  the  universal 
people  went  out  to  meet,  to  welcome,  and  to  receive  him  to  their 
abodes,  was  it  not  because  he  was  a  soldier  of  our  Revolutionary 
army  ?  When  from  state  to  state  he  moved  under  one  continued 
shout  of  congratulation,  it  was  not  the  great  and  illustrious  noble- 
man, but  the  long-remembered  and  deeply-endeared  soldier  of  our 
Revolutionary  army,  whom  the  people  delighted  to  honor.  At  last, 
when  he  left  our  shores,  carrying  with  him  such  testimonials  as 
were  appropriate  for  such  a  nation  to  give,  and  such  a  man  to 
receive,  no  American  imagined,  though  such  was  the  fact,  that  we 
had  been  doing  honors  to  the  most  meritorious  man  in  Europe ;  all 
men  believed  that  it  was  but  the  expression  of  national  gratitude  to 
the  soldier,  the  Revolutionary  soldier,  who  had  devoted  his  youth, 
his  fortune  and  his  blood,  in  defence  of  our  independence  !  Is 
there  no  such  sentiment  now  in  the  bosom  of  our  nation,  embracing, 
warmly  embracing,  these,  his  venerable  brothers  in  arms  ? 

At  the  last  great  national  festival  of  independence,  the  first 
jubilee  of  our  country,  why  were  these  men,  by  a  kind  of  simulta- 
neous sentiment  "  beating  in  every  pulse "  through  the  nation, 
called  out  to  assist  at  the  solemnities,  and  to  partake  of  the  joys 
and  festivities,  of  the  day  ?  Was  this  done,  sir,  merely  to  tantalize 
their  hopes  ?  or  was  it  done  to  assure  them  that  already  the  voice 
of  the  people  had  awarded  to  them  this  provision,  and  that  they 
were  only  4o  wait  until  the  forms  of  law  had  given  efficiency  to 
this  award,  until  the  recorded  enactments  of  their  representatives 
in  Congress  had  embodied  and  promulgated  this  great  voice  of  the 
people  ? 

The  character  of  your  bestowment  on  Lafayette  depends  on  the 
fate  of  this  measure.    Make  this  provision  for  the  remainder  of 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


229 


your  Revolutionary  army,  and  this  and  that  will  forever  stand  on 
the  page  of  history  as  illustrious  deeds  of  national  gratitude. 
§end  away  these,  his  meritorious  brothers  in  arms,  to  "  beg  their 
bread  through  realms  their  valor  saved,"  and  your  gifts  to  that 
illustrious  foreigner  will,  in  the  eyes  of  other  nations  and  of  pos- 
terity, serve  only  to  purchase  for  you  the  character  of  a  poor  and 
a  pitiful  ostentation ! 


THE  PATRIOT'S  DUTY.  —  J.  Quincy. 

For  my  single  self,  did  I  support  such  projects  as  are  avowed  to 
be  the  objects  of  this  bill,  I  should  deem  myself  a  traitor  to  my 
country.  Were  I  even  to  aid  them,  by  loan,  or  any  other  way,  I 
should  consider  myself  a  partaker  in  the  guilt  of  the  purpose. 
But  when  these  projects  of  invasion  shall  be  abandoned ;  when  men 
yield  up  schemes  which  not  only  openly  contemplate  the  raising  of 
a  great  military  force,  but  also  the  concentrating  them  at  one  point, 
and  placing  them  in  one  hand,  —  schemes  obviously  ruinous  to  the 
fates  of  a  free  republic,  as  they  comprehend  the  means  by  which 
such  have  ever,  heretofore,  been  destroyed;  —  when,  I  say,  such 
schemes  shall  be  abandoned,  and  the  wishes  of  the  cabinet  limited 
to  mere  defence,  and  frontier  and  maritime  protection,  there  will 
be  no  need  of  calls  to  union.  For  such  objects  there  is  not,  there 
cannot  be,  but  one  heart  and  soul  in  this  people. 

I  know  that  while  I  utter  these  things  a  thousand  tongues  and 
a  thousand  pens  are  preparing,  without  doors,  to  overwhelm  me,  if 
possible,  by  their  pestiferous  gall.  Already  I  hear  in  the  air  the 
sound  of  "  traitor,"  "  British  agent,"  "  British  gold,"  and  all  those 
changes  of  vulgar  calumny  by  which  the  imaginations  of  the  mass 
of  men  are  affected,  and  by  which  they  are  prevented  from  listen- 
ing to  what  is  true  and  receiving  what  is  reasonable. 

It  well  becomes  any  man,  standing  in  the  presence  of  such  a 
nation  as  this,  to  speak  of  himself  seldom,  —  and  such  a  man  as  I 
am,  it  becomes  to  speak  of  himself  not  at  all,  except,  indeed,  when 
the  relations  in  which  he  stands  to  his  country  are  little  known, 
and  when  the  assertion  of  those  relations  has  some  connection, 
20 


230 


SPECIMENS  OF 


and  may  have  some  influence  on  interests  which  it  is  peculiarly 
incumbent  upon  him  to  support.  Under  this  sanction,  I  say,  it  is 
not  for  a  man  whose  ancestors  have  been  planted  in  this  country, 
now,  for  almost  two  centuries,  —  it  is  not  for  a  man  who  has  a 
family,  and  friends,  and  character,  and  children,  and  a  deep  stake 
in  the  soil,  —  it  is  not  for  a  man  who  is  self-conscious  of  being 
rooted  in  that  soil  as  deeply  and  exclusively  as  the  oak  which 
shoots  among  its  rocks,  —  it  is  not  for  such  a  man  to  hesitate  or 
swerve  a  hair's  breadth  from  his  country's  purpose  and  true  inter- 
ests, because  of  the  yelpings,  the  bowlings  and  snarlings,  of  that 
hungry  pack,  which  corrupt  men  keep,  directly  or  indirectly,  in 
pay,  with  the  view  of  hunting  down  every  man  who  dare  develop 
their  purposes ;  a  pack  composed,  it  is  true,  of  some  native  curs, 
but  for  the  most  part  of  hounds  and  spaniels  of  very  recent  import- 
ation, whose  backs  are  seared  by  the  lash  and  whose  necks  are 
sore  with  the  collars  of  their  former  masters.  In  fulfilling  his 
duty,  the  lover  of  his  country  must  often  be  obliged  to  breast  the 
shock  of  calumny.  If  called  to  that  service,  he  will  meet  the  exi- 
gency with  the  same  firmness  as,  should  another  occasion  call,  he 
would  breast  the  shock  of  battle.  No !  I  am  not  to  be  deterred 
by  such  apprehensions.  May  Heaven  so  deal  with  me  and  mine, 
as  I  am  true  or  faithless  to  the  best  interests  of  this  people  !  May 
it  deal  with  me  according  to  its  just  judgments,  when  I  fail  to 
bring  men  and  measures  to  the  bar  of  public  opinion,  and  to  expose 
projects  and  systems  of  policy  which  I  realize  to  be  ruinous  to  the 
peace,  prosperity  and  liberties,  of  my  country ! 


RESTLESS  SPIRIT  OF  HUMANITY.  — W.  Fisk. 

There  is  a  spirit,  an  active,  aspiring  principle  in  man,  which 
cannot  be  broken  down  by  oppression,  or  satisfied  by  indulgence : 

"  He  has  a  soul  of  vast  desires,  — 
It  burns  within  with  restless  fires;  " 

desires  which  no  earthly  good  can  satisfy ;  fires  which  no  waters 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


231 


of  affliction  or  discouragement  can  quench.  And  it  is  from  this 
his  nature  that  society  derives  all  its  interests,  and  here,  also,  lies 
all  its  danger.  This  spirit  is  at  once  the  terror  of  tyrants  and  the 
destroyer  of  republics. 

To  form  some  idea  of  its  strength,  let  us  look  at  it  in  its  different 
conditions,  both  when  it  is  depressed  and  when  it  is  exalted.  See 
when  it  is  bent  down  for  a  time  by  the  iron  grasp  and  leaden 
sceptre  of  tyranny,  cramping,  and  curtailing,  and  hedging  in  the 
soul,  and  foiling  it  in  all  its  attempts  to  break  from  its  bonds  and 
assert  its  native  independence  !  In  these  cases  the  noble  spirit,  like 
a  wild  beast  in  the  toils,  sinks  down  at  times  into  sullen  inactivity, 
only  that  it  may  rise  again,  when  exhausted  nature  is  a  little 
restored,  to  rush,  as  hope  excites  or  madness  impels,  in  stronger 
paroxysms,  against  the  cords  which  bind  it  down. 

This  is  seen  in  the  mobs  and  rebellions  of  the  most  besotted  and 
enslaved  nations.  Witness  the  repeated  convulsions  in  Ireland, 
that  degraded  and  oppressed  country.  Neither  desolating  armies, 
nor  numerous  garrisons,  nor  the  most  rigorous  administration, 
enforced  by  thousands  of  public  executions,  can  break  the  spirit  of 
that  restless  people.  Witness  Greece.  Generations  have  passed 
away  since  the  warriors  of  Greece  have  had  their  feet  put  in  fet- 
ters, and  the  race  of  heroes  had  apparently  become  extinct,  and  the 
Grecian  lyre  had  long  been  unstrung,  and  her  lights  put  out.  Her 
haughty  masters  thought  her  spirit  was  dead ;  but  it  was  not  dead, 
it  only  slept.  In  a  moment,  as  it  were,  we  saw  all  Greece  in 
arms ;  she  shook  off  her  slumbers,  and  rushed,  with  frenzy  and 
hope,  upon  seeming  impossibilities,  to  conquer  or  to  die.  And 
though  the  mother  and  the  daughter,  as  well  as  the  father  and  the 
son,  have  fought  and  fallen  in  the  common  cause,  until  her  popu- 
lation grows  thin,  —  though  Missolonghi  and  many  other  strong- 
holds have  fallen,  until  her  fortifications  are  few  and  feeble,  — 
though  Christian  nations  have  looked  on  with  a  cruel  inactivity, 
without  lending  their  needed  aid,  —  yet  the  spirit  of  Greece  is  no 
more  subdued  than  at  the  commencement  of  the  contest.  It  can- 
cot  be  subdued. 

We  see,  then,  that  man  has  a  spirit  which,  is  not  easily  broken 


232 


SPECIMENS  OP 


down  by  oppression.  Let  us  inquire  whether  it  can  be  more  easily 
satisfied  by  indulgence.  And  in  every  step  of  this  inquiry  we  shall 
find  that  no  miser  ever  yet  had  gold  enough,  no  office-seeker  ever 
yet  had  honor  enough,  no  conqueror  ever  yet  subdued  kingdoms 
enough.  When  the  rich  man  had  filled  his  store-houses,  he  must 
pull  down  and  build  larger.  When  Caesar  had  conquered  all  his 
enemies,  he  must  enslave  his  friends.  When  Bonaparte  had 
become  the  Emperor  of  France,  he  aspired  to  the  throne  of  all 
Europe.  Facts,  a  thousand  facts  in  every  age  and  among  all 
classes,  prove  that  such  is  the  ambitious  nature  of  the  soul,  such 
the  increasing  compass  of  its  vast  desires,  that  the  material  uni- 
verse, with  all  its  vastness,  richness  and  variety,  cannot  satisfy  it. 
Nor  is  it  in  the  power  of  the  governments  of  this  world,  in  their 
most  perfect  forms,  so  to  interest  the  feelings,  so  to  regulate  the 
desires,  so  to  restrain  the  passions,  or  so  to  divert,  or  charm,  or 
chain  the  souls  of  a  whole  community,  but  that  these  latent  and 
ungovernable  fires  will  sooner  or  later  burst  out,  and  endanger  the 
whole  body  politic. 

The  wise  framers  of  our  excellent  political  institutions,  like  the 
eclectic  philosophers,  have  selected  the  best  parts  out  of  all  the  sys- 
tems which  preceded  them,  and  to  these  have  added  others,  accord- 
ing to  the  suggestions  of  their  own  wisdom,  or  the  leadings  of 
Providence,  and  have  formed  the  whole  into  a  constitution,  the 
most  perfect  the  world  has  ever  witnessed.  Here  everything  that 
is  rational  in  political  liberty  is  enjoyed ;  here  the  most  salutary 
checks  and  restraints  that  have  yet  been  discovered  are  laid  upon 
men  in  office.  Here  the  road  to  honor  and  wealth  is  open  to  all, 
and  here  is  general  intelligence.  But  here  man  is  found  to  pos- 
sess the  same  nature  as  elsewhere.  And  the  stirrings  of  his  rest- 
less spirit  have  already  disturbed  the  peace  of  society,  and  portend 
future  convulsions.  Party  spirit  is  begotten ;  ambitious  views  are 
engendered,  and  fed,  and  inflamed  ;  many  are  running  the  race  for 
office ;  rivals  are  envied,  characters  are  aspersed,  animosities  are 
enkindled,  and  the  whole  community  are  disturbed  by  the  elec- 
tioneering contest. 

No  meanness  is  foregone,  no  calumny  is  too  glaring,  no  venality 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


233 


is  too  base,  when  the  mind  is  inflamed  with  strong  desire,  and 
elated  with  the  hope  of  success  in  the  pursuit  of  some  favorite 
object.  And  when  the  doubtful  question  is  decided,  it  avails  noth- 
ing. Disappointment  sours  the  mind,  and  often  produces  the  most 
bitter  enmity  and  the  most  settled  and  systematic  opposition  in  the 
unsuccessful  party,  while  success  but  imperfectly  satisfies  the  mind 
of  the  more  fortunate. 

And  if  no  other  influence  come  in,  to  curb  the  turbulent  spirits 
of  men,  besides  that  which  is  found  in  our  general  intelligence  and 
constitutional  checks,  probably  at  no  great  distance  of  time  such 
convulsions  may  be  witnessed  in  our  now  happy  country  as  shall 
make  the  ears  of  him  that  heareth  it  tingle,  and  the  eyes  of  him 
that  seeth  it  weep  blood.  State  may  be  arrayed  against  state,  sec- 
tion against  section,  and  party  against  party,  till  all  the  horrors  of 
civil  war  may  desolate  our  land  ! 


FREE  DISCUSSION.  —  D.  Webster. 

Important  as  I  deem  it  to  discuss,  on  all  proper  occasions,  the 
policy  of  the  measures  at  present  pursued,  it  is  still  more  important 
to  maintain  the  right  of  such  discussion  in  its  full  and  just  extent. 
Sentiments  lately  sprung  up,  and  now  growing  fashionable,  make 
it  necessary  to  be  explicit  on  this  point.  The  more  I  perceive  a 
disposition  to  check  the  freedom  of  inquiry  by  extravagant  and 
unconstitutional  pretences,  the  firmer  shall  be  the  tone  in  which  I 
shall  assert,  and  the  freer  the  manner  in  which  I  shall  exercise  it. 

It  is  the  ancient  and  undoubted  prerogative  of  the  people  to  can- 
vass public  measures,  and  the  merits  of  public  men.  It  is  a 
"  home-bred  right,"  a  fireside  privilege.  It  hath  ever  been  en- 
joyed in  every  house,  cottage  and  cabin,  in  the  nation.  It  is  not 
to  be  drawn  into  controversy.  It  is  as  undoubted  as  the  right  of 
breathing  the  air  or  walking  on  the  earth.  Belonging  to  public 
life  as  a  right,  it  belongs  to  public  life  as  a  duty ;  and  it  is  the 
last  duty  which  those  whose  representative  I  am  shall  find  me  to 
abandon.  Aiming  at  all  times  to  be  temperate  and  courteous  in  its 
20* 


234 


SPECIMENS  OF 


use,  except  when  the  right  itself  shall  be  questioned,  I  shall  then 
carry  it  to  its  extent.  I  shall  place  myself  on  the  extreme  bound- 
ary of  my  right,  and  bid  defiance  to  any  arm  that  would  move  me 
from  my  ground. 

This  high  constitutional  privilege  I  shall  defend  and  exercise 
within  this  house,  and  without  this  house,  and  in  all  places ;  in 
time  of  peace,  and  in  all  times.  Living,  I  shall  assert  it ;  and, 
should  I  leave  no  other  inheritance  to  my  children,  by  the  blessing 
of  God  I  will  leave  them  the  inheritance  of  free  principles,  and 
the  example  of  a  manly,  independent  and  constitutional  defence 
of  them. 


CHARACTER  OF  GEST.  JACKSON.  —  G.  Bancroft. 

The  men  of  the  American  Revolution  are  no  more !  That  age 
of  creative  power  has  passed  away.  The  last  surviving  signer  of 
the  Declaration  of  Independence  has  long  since  left  the  earth ! 
Washington  lies  near  his  own  Potomac,  surrounded  by  his  family 
and  his  servants.  Adams,  the  Colossus  of  independence,  reposes 
in  the  modest  grave-yard  of  his  native  region.  Jefferson  sleeps  on 
the  heights  of  his  own  Monticello,  whence  his  eye  overlooked  his 
beloved  Virginia.  Madison,  the  last  survivor  of  the  men  who 
made  our  constitution,  lives  only  in  our  hearts.  But  who  shall 
say  that  the  heroes  in  whom  the  image  of  God  shone  most  brightly 
do  not  live  forever  ?  They  were  filled  with  the  vast  conceptions 
which  called  America  into  being ;  they  lived  for  those  conceptions, 
and  their  deeds  praise  them. 

We  are  met  to  commemorate  the  virtues  of  one  who  shed  his 
blood  for  Our  independence,  took  part  in  winning  the  territory  and 
forming  the  early  institutions  of  the  west,  and  was  imbued  with  all 
the  great  ideas  which  constitute  the  moral  force  of  our  country. 

South  Carolina  gave  a  birth-place  to  Andrew  Jackson.  On  its 
remote  frontier,  far  up  on  the  forest-clad  banks  of  the  Catawba,  in 
a  region  where  the  settlers  were  just  beginning  to  cluster,  his  eye 
first  saw  the  light.  There  his  infancy  sported  in  the  ancient  for- 
ests, and  his  mind  was  nursed  to  freedom  by  their  influence.  His 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


235 


boyhood  grew  up  in  the  midst  of  the  contest  with  Great  Britain. 
The  first  great  political  truth  that  reached  his  heart  was,  that  all 
men  are  free  and  equal ;  the  first  great  fact  that'  beamed  on  his 
understanding  was,  his  country's  independence. 

The  strife,  as  it  increased,  came  near  the  shades  of  his  upland 
residence.  'As  a  boy  of  thirteen  he  witnessed  the  scenes  of  horror 
that  accompany  civil  war ;  and  when  but  a  year  older,  with  an 
elder  brother,  he  shouldered  his  musket,  and  went  forth  to  strike  a 
blow  for  his  country.  Joyous  era  for  America  and  for  humanity ! 
But  for  him,  the  orphan  boy,  the  events  were  full  of  agony  and 
grief! 

At  the  very  time  when  Washington  was  pledging  his  own  and 
future  generations  to  the  support  of  the  popular  institutions  which 
were  to  be  the  light  of  the  human  race,  —  at  the  time  when  the 
institutions  of  the  Old  "World  were  rocking  to  their  centre,  and  the 
mighty  fabric  that  had  come  down  from  the  middle  ages  was  fall- 
ing in,  —  the  adventurous  Jackson,  in  the  radiant  glory  and  bound- 
less hope  and  confident  intrepidity  of  twenty-one,  plunged  into  the 
wilderness,  crossed  the  great  mountain-barrier  that  divides  the 
western  waters  from  the  Atlantic,  followed  the  paths  of  the  early 
hunters  and  fugitives,  and,  not  content  with  the  nearer  neighbor- 
hood to  his  parent  state,  went  still  further  and  further  to  the  west, 
till  he  found  his  home  in  the  most  beautiful  region  on  the  Cum- 
berland. 

On  all  great  occasions,  Jackson's  influence  was  deferred  to. 
When  Jefferson  had  acquired  for  the  country  the  whole  of  Lou- 
isiana, and  there  seemed  some  hesitancy  on  the  part  of  Spain  to 
acknowledge  our  possession,  the  services  of  Jackson  were  solicited 
by  the  national  administration,  and  were  not  called  into  full  exer- 
cise only  from  the  peaceful  termination  of  the  incidents  that  occa- 
sioned the  summons.  In  the  long  series  of  aggressions  on  the 
freedom  of  the  seas  and  the  rights  of  the  American  flag,  J ackson 
was  on  the  side  of  his  country  and  the  new  maritime  code  of 
republicanism.  In  his  inland  home,  where  the  roar  of  the  breakers 
svas  never  heard,  and  the  mariner  was  never  seen,  he  resented  tho 
continued  aggression  on  our  commerce  and  on  our  sailors. 


236 


SPECIMENS  OP 


A  pupil  of  the  wilderness,  his  heart  was  with  the  pioneers  of 
American  life  towards  the  setting  sun.  No  American  statesman 
has  ever  embraced  within  his  affections  a  scheme  so  liberal  for  the 
emigrants  as  that  of  Jackson.  He  longed  to  secure  to  them,  not 
preemption  rights  only,  but  more  than  preemption  rights.  He 
longed  to  invite  labor  to  take  possession  of  the  unocCupied  fields 
without  money  and  without  price,  with  no  obligation  except  the 
perpetual  devotion  of  itself  by  allegiance  to  its  country.  Under 
the  beneficent  influence  of  his  opinions,  the  sons  of  misfortune,  the 
children  of  adventure,  find  their  way  to  the  uncultivated  west. 
There,  in  some  wilderness  glade,  or  in  the  thick  forest  of  the  fertile 
plain,  or  where  the  prairies  most  sparkle  with  flowers,  they,  like 
the  wild  bee  which  sets  them  the  example  of  industry,  may  choose 
their  home,  mark  the  extent  of  their  possessions  by  driving  stakes 
or  blazing  trees,  shelter  their  log-cabins  with  the  boughs  and  turf, 
and  teach  the  virgin  soil  to  yield  itself  to  the  ploughshare.  Theirs 
shall  be  the  soil,  theirs  the  beautiful  farms  which  they  teach  to  be 
productive.  Come,  children  of  sorrow !  you  on  whom  the  Old 
World  frowns,  crowd  fearlessly  to  the  forests;  plant  your  homes  ii 
confidence,  for  the  country  watches  over  you ;  your  children  gtwi 
around  you  as  hostages,  and  the  wilderness,  at  your  bidding,  sur 
renders  its  grandeur  of  useless  luxuriance  to  the  beauty  and  love 
liness  of  culture. 

The  portions  of  country  that  suffered  most  severely  from  : 
system  of  legislation  which,  in  its  extreme  character,  as  it  thei 
existed,  is  now  universally  acknowledged  to  have  been  uncqiia 
and  unjust,  were  less  tranquil ;  and,  rallying  on  the  doctrines  o 
freedom,  which  made  our  government  a  limited  one,  they  saw  i 
the  oppressive  acts  an  assumption  of  power  which  was  nugator} 
because  it  wras  exercised,  as  they  held,  without  authority  from  th 
people.  The  contest  that  ensued  wras  the  most  momentous  in  on 
annals.  The  greatest  minds  of  America  engaged  in  the  discussioi 
Eloquence  never  achieved  sublimer  triumphs  in  the  American  so; 
ate  than  on  those  occasions.  The  country  became  deeply  divide.' 
and  the  antagonist  elements  were  arrayed  against  each  other  unu\ 
forms  of  clashing  authority,  menacing  civil  war ;  the  freedom  c 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


237 


the  several  states  was  invoked  against  the  power  of  the  United 
States  ;  and,  under  the  organization  of  a  state  in  convention,  the 
reserved  rights  of  the  people  were  summoned  to  display  their 
energy,  and  balance  the  authority  and  neutralize  the  legislation  of 
the  central  government.  The  states  were  agitated  with  prolonged 
excitement ;  the  friends  of  freedom  throughout  the  world  looked 
on  with  divided  sympathies,  praying  that  the  Union  of  the  States 
might  be  perpetual,  and  also  that  the  commerce  of  the  world 
might  be  free. 

Fortunately  for  the  country,  and  fortunately  for  mankind, 
Andrew  Jackson  was  at  the  helm  of  state,  the  representative  of 
the  principles  that  were  to  allay  excitement,  and  to  restore  the 
hopes  of  peace  and  freedom.  By  nature,  by  impulse,  by  educa- 
tion, by  conviction,  a  friend  to  personal  freedom,  —  by  education, 
political  sympathies,  and  the  fixed  habit  of  his  mind,  a  friend  to 
the  rights  of  the  states,  —  unwilling  that  the  liberty  of  the  states 
should  be  trampled  under  foot,  unwilling  that  the  constitution 
should  lose  its  vigor  or  be  impaired,  he  rallied  for  the  constitution, 
and  in  its  name  he  published  to  the  world,  "  The  Union,  it  must 
be  preserved  !  "  The  words  were  a  spell  to  hush  evil  passion  and 
to  remove  oppression.  Under  his  guiding  influence  the  favored 
interests,  which  had  struggled  to  perpetuate  unjust  legislation, 
yielded  to  the  voice  of  moderation  and  reform,  and  every  mind  that 
had  for  a  moment  contemplated  a  rupture  of  the  states  discarded 
it  forever.  The  whole  influence  of  the  past  was  invoked  in  favor 
of  the  constitution ;  from  the  council-chambers  of  the  fathers  who 
moulded  our  institutions,  from  the  hall  where  American  independ- 
ence was  declared,  the  clear,  loud  cry  was  uttered,  "  The  Union, 
it  must  be  preserved."  From  every  battle-field  of  the  Revolution, 
—  from  Lexington  and  Bunker  Hill,  from  Saratoga  and  York- 
town,  from  the  fields  of  Eutaw,  from  the  cane-brakes  that  shel- 
tered the  men  of  Marion,  —  the  repeated,  long-prolonged  echoes 
came  up,  "  The  Union,  it  must  be  preserved !  "  From  every  valley 
in  our  land,  from  every  cabin  on  the  pleasant  mountain-sides, 
from  the  ships  at  our  wharves,  from  the  tents  of  the  hunter  in 
our  westernmost  prairies,  from  the  living  minds  of  the  living  mil- 


238  SPECIMENS  OF 

lions  of  American  freemen,  from  the  thickly-coming  glories  of 
futurity,  the  shout  went  up  like  the  sound  of  many  waters,  "The 
Union,  it  must  be  preserved !  " 

Behold  the  warrior  and  statesman,  his  work  well  done,  retired 
to  the  Hermitage,  to  hold  converse  with  his  forests,  to  cultivate  his 
farm,  to  gather  around  him  hospitably  his  friends  !  Who  was  like 
him  ?  He  was  still  the  loadstar  of  the  American  people.  His  fer- 
vid thoughts,  frankly  uttered,  still  spread  the  flame  of  patriotism 
through  the  American  breast ;  his  counsels  were  still  listened  to 
with  reverence ;  and,  almost  alone  among  statesmen,  he  in  his 
retirement  was  in  harmony  with  every  onward  movement  of  his 
time.  His  prevailing  influence  assisted  to  sway  a  neighboring 
nation  to  desire  to  share  our  institutions ;  his  ear  heard  the  foot- 
steps of  the  coming  millions  that  are  to  gladden  our  western  shores, 
and  his  eye  discerned  in  the  dim  distance  the  whitening  sails  that 
are  to  enliven  the  waters  of  the  Pacific  with  the  social  sounds  of 
our  successful  commerce. 

Age  had  whitened  his  locks,  and  dimmed  his  eye,  and  spread 
around  him  the  infirmities  and  venerable  emblems  of  many  years 
of  toilsome  service ;  but  his  heart  beat  as  warmly  as  in  his  youth, 
and  his  courage  was  as  firm  as  it  had  ever  been  in  the  day  of  bat- 
tle. But,  while  his  affections  were  still  for  his  friends  and  his 
country,  his  thoughts  were  already  in  a  better  world.  That 
exalted  mind,  which  in  active  life  had  always  had  unity  of  percep- 
tion and  will,  which  in  action  had  never  faltered  from  doubt,  and 
which  in  counsel  had  always  reverted  to  first  principles  and  general 
laws,  now  gave  itself  up  to  communing  with  the  Infinite.  He  was 
a  believer,  from  feeling,  from  experience,  from  conviction.  Not  a 
shadow  of  scepticism  ever  dimmed  the  lustre  of  his  mind.  Proud 
philosopher,  will  you  smile  to  know  that  Andrew  Jackson  perused 
reverently  his  Psalter  and  Prayer-Book  and  Bible?  Know  that 
Andrew  Jackson  had  faith  in  the  eternity  of  truth,  in  the  imper- 
ishable power  of  popular  freedom,  in  the  destinies  of  humanity,  in 
the  virtues  and  capacity  of  the  people,  in  his  country's  institutions, 
in  the  being  and  over-ruling  providence  of  a  merciful  and  ever- 
living  God. 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


239 


The  last  moment  of  his  life  on  earth  is  at  hand.  It  is  the  Sah- 
Cath  of  the  Lord ;  the  brightness  and  beauty  of  the  summer  clothe 
the  fields  around  him  ;  nature  is  in  her  glory ;  —  but  the  sublimest 
spectacle  on  that  day,  on  earth,  was  the  victory  of  his  unblenching 
spirit  over  death  itself!  In  life,  his  career  had  been  like  the  blaze 
of  the  sun  in  the  fierceness  of  its  noonday  glory ;  his  death  was 
lovely  as  the  mildest  sunset  of  a  summer's  evening,  when  the  sun 
goes  down  in  tranquil  beauty  without  a  cloud  ! 


SUFFERINGS  AND  DESTINY  OF  THE  PILGRIMS.  —  E.  Everett. 

Methinks  I  see  it  now,  that  one  solitary,  adventurous  vessel,  the 
Mayflower  of  a  forlorn  hope,  freighted  with  the  prospects  of  a  future 
state,  and  bound  across  the  unknown  sea.  I  behold  it  pursuing, 
with  a  thousand  misgivings,  the  uncertain,  the  tedious  voyage. 
Suns  rise  and  set,  and  weeks  and  months  pass,  and  winter  surprises 
them  on  the  deep,  but  brings  them  not  the  sight  of  the  wished-for 
shore.  I  see  them  now,  scantily  supplied  with  provisions,  crowded 
almost  to  suffocation  in  their  ill-stored  prison,  delayed  by  calms, 
pursuing  a  circuitous  route ;  and  now  driven  in  fury  before  the 
raging  tempest,  on  the  high  and  giddy  wave.  The  awful  voice  of 
the  storm  howls  through  the  rigging ;  the  laboring  masts  seem 
straining  from  their  base ;  the  dismal  sound  of  the  pumps  is  heard ; 
the  ship  leaps,  as  it  were,  madly  from  billow  to  billow ;  the  ocean 
breaks,  and  settles  with  ingulfing  floods  over  the  floating  deck,  and 
beats,  with  deadening,  shivering  weight,  against  the  staggered  ves- 
sel. I  see  them,  escaped  from  these  perils,  pursuing  their  all  but 
desperate  undertaking,  and  landed,  at  last,  after  a  five  months' 
passage,  on  the  ice-clad  rocks  of  Plymouth,  weak  and  weary  from 
the  voyage,  poorly  armed,  scantily  provisioned,  without  shelter, 
without  means,  surrounded  by  hostile  tribes. 

Shut,  now,  the  volume  of  history,  and  tell  me,  on  any  principle 
of  human  probability,  what  shall  be  the  fate  of  this  handful  of 
adventurers?  Tell  me,  man  of  military  science,  in  how  many 
months  were  they  all  swept  off  by  the  thirty  savage  tribes  enumer- 


240 


SPECIMENS  OF 


ated  within  the  early  limits  of  New  England  ?  Tell  me,  politician, 
how  long  did  this  shadow  of  a  colony,  on  which  your  conventions 
and  treaties  had  not  smiled,  languish  on  the  distant  coast  ?  Stu- 
dent of  history,  compare  for  me  the  baffled  projects,  the  deserted 
settlements,  the  abandoned  adventures,  of  other  times,  and  find  the 
parallel  of  this!  Was  it  the  winter's  storm,  beating  upon  the 
houseless  heads  of  women  and  children,  was  it  hard  labor  and 
spare  meals,  was  it  disease,  was  it  the  tomahawk, — was  it  the 
deep  malady  of  a  blighted  hope,  a  ruined  enterprise,  and  a  broken 
heart,  aching,  in  its  last  moments,  at  the  recollection  of  the  loved 
and  left,  beyond  the  sea,  —  was  it  some,  or  all  of  these  united, 
that  hurried  this  forsaken  company  to  their  melancholy  fate? 
And  is  it  possible  that  neither  of  these  causes,  that  not  all  com- 
bined, were  able  to  blast  this  bud  of  hope  ?  Is  it  possible  that 
from  a  beginning  so  feeble,  so  frail,  so  worthy  not  so  much  of 
admiration  as  of  pity,  there  has  gone  forth  a  progress  so  steady,  a 
growth  so  wonderful,  an  expansion  so  ample,  a  reality  so  important, 
a  promise,  yet  to  be  fulfilled,  so  glorious ! 


RELIGION  AND  POETRY.  —  W.  J.  Hamersley. 

Poetry  can  adapt  herself  to  all  ages.  She  can  weave  a  simple 
ballad  for  childhood,  or  a  fervent  song  for  the  youth  ripening  into 
manhood ;  she  has  her  pictures  of  fireside  happiness  and  domestic 
comfort  for  the  parent,  and  her  voice  has  a  tone  for  the  ear  of  the 
aged.  She  can  adapt  herself  to  ail  conditions.  She  has  her  simple 
and  affecting  narrative  for  the  poor  and  the  humble  ;  she  has  a 
trumpet  voice  for  the  soldier  and  the  statesman,  and  a  most  refined 
speech  for  the  scholar.  She  will  be  our  companion  at  all  times 
and  in  all  seasons ;  she  will  give  an  additional  zest  to  prosperity, 
and  when  the  season  of  adversity  shall  arrive  she  will  comfort  the 
wounded  spirit  and  bind  up  the  broken  heart. 

The  most  groundless  and  anomalous  objections  urged  against 
poetry  are  those  which  proceed  from  a  certain  class  of  religious 
men.    The  chief  charge  on  the  part  of  such  men  is  the  perversion 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


241 


of  poetry  to  improper  uses.  As  well  might  they  tell  the  patriot 
not  to  draw  the  sword  in  behalf  of  his  country  because  it  is  the 
weapon  of  the  oppressor ;  as  well  might  they  cast  away  the  book 
of  life  because  its  meaning  is  distorted  by  fools  and  fanatics. 
Poetry  is  most  grand  when  connected  with  religious  subjects ;  and 
in  her  purest  and  most  sublime  personification  she  does  not,  like 
Ajax,  defy  the  lightning  and  the  God  who  wields  it,  but,  like  the 
ethereal  beings  around  the  throne  of  heaven,  she  veils  her  burning 
eyes  with  her  resplendent  wings  when  in  the  solemn  presence  of 
the  Almighty.  He  who  has  no  love  for  poetry  may  lay  to  heart 
the  precepts  of  the  Bible ;  but  there  is  a  light  upon  the  pages  of 
that  book  which  he  sees  not,  there  is  a  harmony  in  its  language 
which  he  hears  not,  —  for  there  is  a  vein  of  poetic  fire,  pure,  sim- 
ple and  sublime,  running  through  the  whole  sacred  volume. 

We  not  only  find  poetry  in  the  abstract  in  the  Scriptures,  but  it 
has  been  maintained  that  a  portion  of  its  contents  are  written  in 
accordance  with  certain  rules  of  composition,  approximating  in 
som^  degree  to  those  which  govern  its  construction  in  its  most 
exclusive  sense  ;  as  in  the  following,  among  many  instances : 

"  My  soul  doth  magnify  the  Lord, 
And  my  spirit  hath  rejoiced  in  God  my  Saviour.'* 

"  He  looketh  on  the  earth, 
And  it  trembleth ; 
He  toucheth  the  hills, 
And  they  smoke." 
"  I  planted, 
Apollos  watered, 
But  God  made  to  grow: 
So  that  neither  he  who  planteth  is  anything, 
Nor  he  that  watereth, 
But  God,  who  maketh  to  grow." 

The  life  of  Christ  is  a  poem,  and  the  argument  comprehends  the 
miraculous  birth;  the  star,  that  God-appointed  herald,  leading 
the  wise  men  to  the  cradle  of  the  child  Jesus;  the  youth  dis- 
puting with  the  doctors;  the  celestial  baptism  ;»the  man  of  sor- 
rows expressing  the  perfect  love  of  God;  the  little  children 
gathered  to  his  bosom  as  the  exemplars  of  the  simple  and  pure 
1  21 


242 


SPECIMENS  OF 


faith  of  the  righteous ;  the  blind  seeing,  and  the  lame  walking, 
and  the  sick  recovering,  and  the  dead  rising  from  their  graves,  at 
his  command ;  the  temptation,  the  fast,  the  transfiguration,  the  trial, 
the  crucifixion,  the  prayer  for  the  forgiveness  of  his  persecutors, 
uttered  amid  the  agony  of  the  cross ;  the  resurrection,  and  the 
mission  of  salvation  fulfilled  by  an  ascension  welcomed  by  the  har- 
monious hallelujahs  of  a  heavenly  chorus. 

The  doctrine  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  which  is  "  brought 
to  light "  in  the  Scriptures,  infuses  into  the  heart  of  the  poet  true 
life,  and  energy,  and  sublimity,  and  opens  to  his  vision  fields  of 
eternal  hope  anil  beauty. 

It  is  the  chief  glory  of  poetry  that  she  bears  us  on  spotless  wings 
far  above  the  sensuous  sphere  of  earth,  and,  like  the  repentant  tear 
which  the  Peri  conveyed  to  the  angel,  removes  the  crystal  bar  that 
binds  the  gates  of  paradise. 

I  am  well  assured  that  poetry,  although  sometimes  seen  in  con- 
nection with  error,  even  as  the  sons  of  God  held  companionship 
with  the  daughters  of  men,  is  one  of  the  choicest  blessings  be- 
queathed to  this  imperfect  world.  The  Christian  can  trace  her 
divine  origin  with  the  utmost  certainty,  and  behold  with  an 
unclouded  vision  that  she  is  born  of  God  and  baptized  with  inspira- 
tion. She  diffuses  a  new  light  upon  the  face  of  nature,  she  weans 
us  from  the  rule  of  our  passions  and  the  dominion  of  our  lusts,  and 
reveals  the  golden  ladder  that  leads  from  earth  to  heaven. 


IN  BEHALF  OF  GREECE.  —  H.  Clay. 

It  has  been  admitted  by  all  that  there  is  impending  over  this 
xmntry  a  threatening  storm,  which  is  likely  to  call  into  action  all 
our  vigor,  courage,  and  resources.  Is  it  a  wise  way  of  preparing 
for  this  awful  event,  to  talk  to  this  nation  of  its  incompetency  to 
resist  European  aggression,  to  lower  its  spirit,  to  weaken  its  moral 
force,  and  do  wTiat  we  can  to  prepare  it  for  base  submission  and 
easy  conquest  ?  If  there  be  any  reality  in  this  menacing  danger, 
I  would  rather  adjure  the  nation  to  remember  that  it  contains  a 


AMERICxVN  ELOQUENCE. 


243 


million  of  freemen  capable  of  bearing  arms,  and  ready  to  exhaust 
their  last  drop  of  blood,  and  their  last  cent,  in  defending  their 
country,  its  institutions,  and  its  liberty.  Are  these  to  be  con- 
quered, by  all  Europe  united?  No;  no  united  nation  can  be,  that 
has  the  spirit  to  resolve  not  to  be  conquered,  —  such  a  nation  is 
ever  invincible.  And  has  it  come  to  this  ?  Are  we  so  humbled, 
so  low,  so  despicable,  that  we  dare  not  express  our  sympathy  for 
suffering  Greece,  lest,  peradventure,  we  might  offend  some  one  or 
more  of  their  imperial  and  royal  majesties  ?  If  gentlemen  are 
afraid  to  act  rashly  on  such  a  subject,  suppose  that  we  draw  an 
humble  petition  addressed  to  their  majesties,  asking  them  that  of 
their  condescension  they  would  allow  us  to  express  something  on 
the  subject.  How  shall  it  begin  ?  "  We,  the  representatives  of 
the  free  people  of  the  United  States  of  America,  humbly  approach 
the  thrones  of  your  imperial  and  royal  majesties,  and  supplicate 
that  of  your  imperial  and  royal  clemency  "  —  I  will-  not  go  through 
the  disgusting  recital ;  my  lips  have  not  yet  learnt  the  sycophantic 
language  of  a  degraded  slave  !  Are  we  so  low,  so  base,  so  despica- 
ble, that  we  may  not  express  our  horror,  articulate  our  detestation, 
of  the  most  brutal  and  atrocious  war  that  ever  stained  earth  or 
shocked  high  Heaven  with  the  ferocious  deeds  of  a  brutal  soldiery, 
set  on  by  the  clergy  and  followers  of  a  fanatical  and  inimical 
religion,  and  rioting  in  excess  of  blood  and  butchery,  at  the  mere 
details  of  which  the  heart  sickens  ?  If  the  great  mass  of  Christen- 
dom can  look  coolly  and  calmly  on  while  all  this  is  perpetrated  on 
a  Christian  people  in  their  own  vicinity,  in  their  very  presence,  let 
us,  at  least,  show  that,  in  this  distant  extremity,  there  is  still  some 
sensibility  and  sympathy  for  Christian  wrongs  and  sufferings,  — 
that  there  are  still  feelings  which  can  kindle  into  indignation  at 
the  oppression  of  a  people  endeared  to  us  by  every  ancient  recollec- 
tion and  every  modern  tie ! 

But  it  is  not  first  and  chiefly  for  Greece  that  I  wish  to  see  this 
measure  adopted.  It  will  give  them  but  little  aid  —  that  aid 
purely  of  a  moral  kind.  It  is  indeed  soothing  and  solacing  in  dis- 
tress to  hear  the  accents  of  a  friendly  voice.  We  know  this  as 
a  people.    But  it  is  principally  and  mainly  for  America  herself, 


244 


SPECIMENS  OF 


for  the  credit  and  character  of  our  common  country,  that  I  hope 
to  see  this  resolution  pass ;  it  is  for  our  own  unsullied  name  that  I 
feel. 

Go  home,  if  you  dare,  —  go  home,  if  you  can,  —  to  your  constit- 
uents, and  tell  them  that  you  voted  it  down  !  Meet,  if  you  dare, 
the  appalling  countenances  of  those  who  sent  you  here*  and  tell 
them  that  you  shrank  from  the  declaration  of  your  own  sentiments 
—  that,  you  cannot  tell  how,  but  that  some  unknown  dread,  some 
indescribable  apprehension,  some  indefinable  danger,  affrighted 
you,  —  that  the  spectres  of  scimetars,  and  crowns,  and  crescents, 
gleamed  before  you  and  alarmed  you,  and  that  you  suppressed  all 
the  noble  feelings  prompted  by  religion,  by  liberty,  by  national 
independence,  and  by  humanity  ! 


THE  MURDERER'S  SECRET.  —  D.  Webster. 

The  deed  was  executed  with  a  degree  of  self-possession  and 
steadiness  equal  to  the  wickedness  with  which  it  was  planned. 
The  circumstances,  now  clearly  in  evidence,  spread  out  the  whole 
scene  before  us.  Deep  sleep  had  fallen  on  the  destined  victim, 
and  on  all  beneath  his  roof.  A  healthful  old  man,  to  whom  sleep 
was  sweet,  the  first  sound  slumbers  of  the  night  hold  him  in  their 
soft  but  strong  embrace.  The  assassin  enters,  through  the  window 
already  prepared,  into  an  unoccupied  apartment.  With  noiseless 
foot  he  paces  the  lonely  hall,  half-lighted  by  the  moon ;  he  winds 
up  the  ascent  of  the  stairs,  and  reaches  the  door  of  the  chamber. 
Of  this  he  moves  the  lock,  by  soft  and  continued  pressure,  till  it 
turns  on  its  hinges  without  noise ;  and  he  enters,  and  beholds  his 
victim  before  him !  The  room  was  uncommonly  open  to  the  admis- 
sion of  light.  The  face  of  the  innocent  sleeper  was  turned  from 
the  murderer,  and  the  beams  of  the  moon,  resting  on  the  gray 
locks  of  his  aged  temple,  showed  him  where  to  strike.  The  fatal 
blow  is  given !  and  the  victim  passes,  without  a  struggle  or  a 
motion,  from  the  repose  of  sleep  to  the  repose  of  death  !  It  is  the 
assassin's  purpose  to  make  sure  work ;  and  he  yet  plies  the  dagger, 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


245 


thou eli  it  was  obvious  that  life  had  been  destroyed  by  the  blow  of 
the  bludgeon.  He  even  raises  the  aged  arm,  that  he  may  not  fail 
in  his  aim  at  the  heart,  and  replaces  it  again  over  the  wounds  of 
the  poniard  !  To  finish  the  picture,  he  explores  the  wrist  for  the 
pulse !  He  feels  for  it,  and  ascertains  that  it  beats  no  longer.  It 
is  accomplished !  The  deed  is  done !  He  retreats,  retraces  his 
steps  to  the  window,  passes  out  through  it  as  he  came  in,  and 
escapes.  He  has  done  the  murder ;  no  eye  has  seen  him,  no  ear 
has  heard  him.    The  secret  is  his  own,  and  it  is  safe ! 

Ah !  gentlemen,  that  was  a  dreadful  mistake  !  Such  a  secret 
can  be  safe  nowhere.  The  whole  creation  of  God  has  neither  nook 
nor  corner  where  the  guilty  can  bestow  it,  and  say  it  is  safe.  Not 
to  speak  of  that  Eye  which  glances  through  all  disguises,  and 
beholds  everything  as  in  the  splendor  of  noon,  such  secrets  of  guilt 
are  never  safe  from  detection,  even  by  man. 

True  it  is,  generally  speaking,  that  "  murder  will  out."  True 
it  is,  that  Providence  hath  so  ordained,  and  doth  so  govern  things, 
that  those  who  break  the  great  law  of  Heaven  by  shedding  man's 
blood  seldom  succeed  in  avoiding  discovery :  especially  in  a  case 
exciting  so  much  attention  as  this,  discovery  must  and  will  come, 
sooner  or  later.  A  thousand  eyes  turn  at  once  to  explore  every 
man,  every  thing,  every  circumstance,  connected  with  the  time  and 
place ;  a  thousand  ears  catch  every  whisper ;  a  thousand  excited 
minds  intensely  dwell  on  the  scene,  shedding  all  their  light,  and 
ready  to  kindle  the  slightest  circumstance  into  a  blaze  of  dis- 
covery. Meantime,  the  guilty  soul  cannot  keep  its  own  secret. 
It  is  false  to  itself ;  or,  rather,  it  feels  an  irresistible  impulse  of 
conscience  to  be  true  to  itself ;  it  labors  under  its  guilty  possession, 
and  knows  not  what  to  do  with  it.  The  human  heart  was  not 
made  for  the  residence  of  such  an  inhabitant ;  it  finds  itself  preyed 
on  by  a  torment,  which  it  dares  not  acknowledge  to  God  or  man. 
A  vulture  is  devouring  it,  and  it  asks  no  sympathy  or  assistance, 
either  from  heaven  or  earth.  The  secret  which  the  murderer  pos- 
sesses soon  comes  to  possess  him  ;  and,  like  the  evil  spirit  of  which 
we  read,  it  overcomes  him,  and  leads  him  whithersoever  it  will. 
He  feels  it  beating  at  his  heart,  rising  to  his  throat,  and  demand- 
21* 


246 


SPECIMENS  OF 


ing  disclosure.  He  thinks  the  whole  world  sees  it  in  his  face, 
reads  it  in  his  eyes,  and  almost  hears  its  workings  in  the  very 
silence  of  his  thoughts.  It  has  become  his  master.  It  betrays 
his  discretion ;  it  breaks  down  his  courage ;  it  conquers  his  pru- 
dence. When  suspicions  from  without  begin  to  embarrass  him, 
and  the  net  of  circumstances  to  entangle  him,  the  fatal  secret 
struggles  with  still  greater  violence  to  burst  forth.  It  must  be 
confessed ;  it  will  be  confessed ;  there  is  no  refuge  from  confession 
but  in  suicide,  —  and  suicide  is  confession ! 


ASPIRATIONS  FOR  AMERICA. —  C.  M.  Clay. 

"While  the  Union  lasts,  amid  these  fertile  verdant  fields,  these 
ever-flowing  rivers,  these  stately  groves,  this  genial,  healthful 
clime,  this  old  Kentucky  land,  —  hallowed  by  the  blood  of  our 
sires,  endeared  by  the  beauty  of  her  daughters,  illustrious  by  the 
valor  and  eloquence  of  her  sons,  the  centre  of  a  most  glorious 
empire,  guarded  by  a  cordon  of  states  garrisoned  by  freemen,  girt 
round  by  the  rising  and  setting  seas,  —  we  are  the  most  blessed  of 
all  people.  Let  the  Union  be  dissolved,  let  that  line  be  drawn 
where  be  drawn  it  must,  and  we  are  a  border  state :  in  time  of 
peace  with  no  outlet  to  the  ocean,  the  highway  of  nations,  a  mis- 
erable dependency ;  in  time  of  war  the  battle-ground  of  more 
than  Indian  warfare  — of  civil  strife  and  indiscriminate  slaughter  ! 
When,  worse  than  Spanish  provinces,  we  shall  contend  not  for 
glory  and  renown,  but,  like  the  aborigines  of  old,  for  a  contempt- 
ible life  and  miserable  subsistence  !  Let  me  not  see  it !  Among 
those  proud  courts  and  lordly  coteries  of  Europe's  pride,  where 
fifty  years  ago  we  were  regarded  as  petty  provinces,  unknown  to 
ears  polite,  let  me  go  forth  great  in  the  name  of  an  American 
citizen.  Let  me  point  them  to  our  statesmen  and  the  laws  and 
governments  of  their  creation,  the  rapid  advance  of  political  sci- 
ence, the  monuments  of  their  fame,  now  the  study  of  all  Europe. 
Let  them  look  at  our  rapidly  increasing  and  happy  population,  see 
our  canals,  and  turnpikes,  and  railroads,  stretching  over  more 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


247 


space  than  combined  Britain  and  Europe  have  reached  by  the  same 
means.  Let  them  send  their  philanthropists  to  learn  of  our  pen- 
itentiary systems,  our  schools,  and  our  civil  institutions.  Let 
them  behold  our  skill  in  machinery,  in  steamboat  and  ship  build- 
ing, —  hail  the  most  gallant  ship  that  breasts  the  mountain  wave, 
and  she  shall  wave  from  her  flag-staff  the  stars  and  stripes.  These 
are  the  images  which  I  cherish ;  this  the  nation  which  I  honor ; 
and  never  will  I  throw  one  pebble  in  her  track,  to  jostle  the  foot- 
steps of  her  glorious  march ! 


AMERICAN  INDEPENDENCE.  —  L.  Woodbury. 

There  seem  to  me  some  points  of  opinion  common  to  us  all  in 
relation  to  the  excellences  and  glories  of  the  independence  we  cele- 
brate. One  of  these  points  is  the  great  importance  of  that  event. 
On  that  account,  inspired  by  one  common  gratitude,  we  all  join 
heart  and  tongue  in  one  chorus  of  thanksgiving  to  the  statesmen 
and  patriots  and  heroes  who  won  our  hallowed  independence.  They 
established  among  us  its  immortal  principles,  we  hope,  forever. 

Lisping  infancy,  therefore,  youth,  manhood,  and  decrepit  age, 
come  together  to-day ;  matron  and  maid,  as  well  as  the  sun- 
burnt millions  from  the  plough  and  the  vessel's  decks,  should  come, 
—  all  professions  and  ranks,  and  forms  of  faith,  political  or 
religious,  —  from  every  hill,  and  valley,  and  prairie,  of  our  beloved 
country,  from  Maine  to  California,  —  all  gather  in  joyful  throngs, 
and  all  bend  in  veneration  before  the  glorious  event,  and  its  thrice- 
glorious  doctrines. 

This  is  not,  that  almost  fourscore  years  ago  some  plain  American 
farmers,  planters,  merchants  and  lawyers,  assembled  in  a  small 
room  near  Independence-square,  in  Philadelphia.  It  is  not,  that 
some  among  them,  with  iron  heart  and  eagle  eye,  dared  do  all 
which  had  immortalized  the  Brutuses  and  Cromwells  of  other  ages, 
and  not  only  speak  their  wrongs,  but  redress  and  avenge  them.  It 
is  not,  that  then  and  there  was  done  a  deed,  to  become  a  newspaper 
theme  for  a  brief  month  only,  or  to  be  known  not  beyond  the  few 


248 


SPECIMENS  OF 


cities  and  settlements  then  scattered  over  the  eastern  slope  of  the 
Alleghanies,  containing  a  population  but  little  larger  than  the 
State  of  New  York  now  does  alone;  or  to  live  in  its  influences 
only  a  generation,  a  half-century  even,  and  then  die  out,  as  have 
perished  from  the  page  of  history  millions  of  other  occurrences,  at 
first  far  more  dazzling  to  the  inexperienced  eye.  But  it  was,  that 
then  occurred  an  event  which  has  become  incorporate  with  Liberty 
herself, — is  a  part  of  her  substance  no  less  than  symbol,  —  and 
shall  endure  as  long  and  spread  as  wide  as  the  longest  and  widest 
portion  of  her  magnificent  empire.  An  event,  which,  if  not  des- 
tined to  revolutionize  all  nations  and  people,  has  been  already  felt, 
in  some  degree,  wherever  civilization  pervades  mankind,  and  is 
likely,  in  coming  ages,  more  and  more,  by  u  the  war  of  opinion  "  it 
wages,  to  leaven  the  political  views  of  the  whole  habitable  globe. 
To  dethrone  a  king  by  oppressed  subjects  has  always  been  one  of 
the  most  glowing  themes  in  the  annals  of  the  human  race.  To 
change  a  dynasty  of  kings  looms  up  still  larger  in  the  horizon  of 
history  and  poetry.  To  alter  the  whole  form  of  government  in 
any  country  often  has  a  bearing  more  important  than  either  on  its 
future  destinies ;  and  especially  so  if  it  be  a  change  from  slavery 
to  freedom,  for  the  people  at  large.  But  to  do  all  these,  —  ?nore 
than  all,  —  to  show  consummate  skill  in  the  cabinet  at  the  same 
time  with  heroic  bravery  in  the  field,  and  to  accomplish  a  revolu- 
tion in  principles  of  government  and  legislation  by  the  pen  and  the 
tongue,  while  another  was  carried  on  and  gloriously  sustained  by 
the  sword, —  by  the  blood  of  freemen  poured  out  in  torrents  where- 
ever  the  invader  polluted  the  soil,  or  a  ruthless  savage  was  let 
loose,  with  tomahawk  and  torch,  on  an  exposed  frontier,  —  this 
was  an  event  that  all  the  millions  who  have  been  signally  blessed 
by  it  may  well  celebrate,  for  its  grandeur,  —  may  long  and  loudty 
celebrate,  —  and  will,  by  God's  permission,  hold  in  holy  remem- 
brance, while  they  preserve  any  of  the  virtues  of  the  patriots  whe 
accomplished  it. 

Myriads  elsewhere,  who  have  enjoyed  only  some  of  its  reflectei 
light,  would  shame  us  for  any  neglect  of  so  great  a  revolution,  bj 
their  heart-felt  rejoicings  over  only  so  much  of  its  influences  a 
have  reached  and  animated  them  in  the  cause  of  political  reform 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE.  249 


because  it  has  been  the  talisman  and  tocsin  to  freedom  in  all  coun- 
tries since.  Whenever,  for  the  last  half-century,  an  oppressed 
people  have  broken  their  chains,  —  whether  in  France,  or  Hun- 
gary, or  the  classic  soil  of  Italy,  —  the  recollection  of  American 
independence  has  strengthened,  if  not  guided,  the  blow ;  and,  when 
tyrants  since  have  trembled  at  popular  indignation,  and  listened  to 
remonstrances,  and  relented  or  reformed,  the  memory  of  American 
liberties  and  victories  has  struck  terror  to  their  hearts,  and  made 
them  relent,  oftener  than  arms  or  arguments,  or  a  returning  sense 
of  justice  towards  the  victims  of  their  wrongs. 

Not  only  have  this  western  continent  and  some  of  its  adjacent 
islands  —  both  sides  of  the  Andes  —  been  thus  made  vocal  with 
songs  of  gratitude  for  the  example  set  this  day,  but  Europe,  from 
the  Baltic  to  the  Mediterranean,  has  felt  the  influence  of  some  of  its 
sacred  principles,  and  been  slowly  but  surely  reforming,  in  order 
to  save  at  all,  a  portion  of  its  superannuated  institutions.  Even 
Asia  has  witnessed  a  grand  vizier  appealing  through  the  press  in 
favor  of  popular  education  and  the  welfare  of  the  people  at  large ; 
and  ere  another  century  closes,  it  would  not  be  more  extraordinary 
to  see  such  principles  prevailing  in  China,  —  in  one  kingdom'  alone 
of  the  populous  east,  —  half  of  the  whole  human  race.  Misunder- 
stood and  misrepresented,  I  admit,  often  have  been  the  character 
of  our  Revolution,  and  the  designs  and  doctrines  of  the  patriots 
who  accomplished  it ;  and  many,  it  must  be  conceded,  have  been 
the  outrages  committed  under  a  pretence  of  justification  through 
ts  principles,  as  flagrant  crimes  have,  in  all  ages,  been  committed 
mder  the  sacred  names  of  liberty  and  religion.  But  the  estab- 
ishment  of  American  independence  is  no  more  answerable  for 
;uch  abuse,  such  perversions  of  her  holy  cause,  than  are  religion 
md  liberty  for  the  profanations  before,  as  well  as  since,  committed 
inder  their  consecrated  banner ;  and  proceeding,  as  we  ought  on 
tccasions  like  this,  to  make  some  inquiry  into  the  true  civil  conse- 
quences of  that  independence,  no  less  than  its  military  daring,  in 
rder  to  appreciate  duly  the  greatness  of  the  event,  it  will  be 
bund  that  their  legitimate  operation,  their  true 'essence,  their  full 
nd  perfect  work,  both  here  and  elsewhere,  is  likely  to  prove  most 
uspicious  to  the  human  race. 


250 


SPECIMENS  OF 


FAREWELL  ADDRESS  TO  HIS  TROOPS.  —  A.  Jackson. 

Possessing  those  dispositions  which  equally  adorn  the  citizen 
and  the  soldier,  the  expectations  of  your  country  will  be  met  in 
peace,  as  her  wishes  have  been  gratified  in  war.  Go,  then,  my 
brave  companions,  to  your  homes,  —  to  those  tender  connections 
and  blissful  scenes  which  render  life  so  dear,  —  full  of  honor,  and 
crowned  with  laurels  which  will  never  fade.  When  participating, 
in  the  bosoms  of  your  families,  the  enjoyment  of  peaceful  life,  with 
what  happiness  will  you  not  look  back  to  the  toils  you  have  borne, 
to  the  dangers  you  have  encountered !  How  will  all  your  past 
exposures  be  converted  into  sources  of  inexpressible  delight !  Who 
that  never  experienced  your  sulferings  will  be  able  to  appreciate 
your  joys  ?  The  man  who  slumbered  ingloriously  at  home  during 
your  painful  marches,  your  nights  of  watchfulness  and  your  days 
of  toil,  will  envy  you  the  happiness  which  these  recollections  will 
afford ;  still  more  will  he  envy  the  gratitude  of  that  country  which 
you  have  so  eminently  contributed  to  save.  Continue,  fellow-sol- 
diers, on  your  passage  to  your  several  destinations,  to  preserve  that 
subordination,  that  dignified  and  manly  deportment,  which  have  so 
ennobled  your  character. 

While  the  commanding  general  is  thus  giving  indulgence  to  his 
feelings  towards  those  brave  companions  who  accompanied  him 
through  difficulties  and  danger,  he  cannot  permit  the  names  of 
Blount,  and  Shelby,  and  Holmes,  to  pass  unnoticed.  With  what 
generous  ardor  and  patriotism  have  these  distinguished  governors 
contributed  all  their  exertions  to  provide  the  means  of  victory  ! 
The  recollections  of  their  exertions,  and  of  the  success  which  has 
resulted,  will  be  to  them  a  reward  more  grateful  than  any  which 
the  pomp  of  title  or  the  splendor  of  wealth  can  bestow. 

WThat  happiness  it  is  to  the  commanding  general,  that,  while 
danger  was  before  him,  he  was,  on  no  occasion,  compelled  to  use 
towards  his  companions  in  arms  either  severity  or  rebuke !  If, 
after  the  enemy  had  retired,  improper  passions  began  their  empire 
in  a  few  unworthy  bosoms,  and  rendered  a  resort  to  energetic 
measures  necessary  for  their  suppression,  ho  has  not  confounded  the 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


251 


innocent  with  the  guilty,  the  seduced  with  the  seducers.  Towards 
you,  fellow-soldiers,  the  most  cheering  recollections  exist,  blended, 
alas !  with  regret  that  disease  and  war  should  have  ravished  from 
us  so  many  worthy  companions.  But  the  memory  of  the  cause  in 
which  they  perished,  and  of  the  virtues  which  animated  them 
while  living,  must  occupy  the  place  where  sorrow  would  claim  to 
dwell. 

Farewell,  fellow-soldiers !  The  expression  of  your  general's 
is  feeble,  but  the  gratitude  of  a  country  of  freemen  is  yours,  — 
yours  the  applause  of  an  admiring  world. 


MUSIC.  —  H.  Bushnell. 

It  cannot  be  said  that  music  is  a  human  creation,  and,  as  far  as 
the  substances  of  the  world  are  concerned,  a  mere  accident.  As 
well  can  it  be  said  that  man  creates  the  colors  of  the  prism,  and 
that  they  are  not  the  properties  of  the  light,  because  he  shapes  the 
prism  by  his  own  mechanical  art.  Or,  if  still  we  doubt,  if  it  seems 
incredible  that  the  soul  of  music  is  in  the  heart  of  all  created  being, 
then  the  laws  of  harmony  themselves  shall  answer,  one  string 
vibrating  to  another,  when  it  is  not  struck  itself,  and  uttering  its 
voice  of  concord  simply  because  the  concord  is  in  it,  and  it  feels  the 
pulses  on  the  air  to  which  it  cannot  be  silent.  Nay,  the  solid 
mountains  and  their  giant  masses  of  rock  shall  answer,  catching, 
as  they  will,  the  bray  of  horns  or  the  stunning  blast  of  cannon, 
rolling  it  across  from  one  top  to  another  in  reverberating  pulses, 
till  it  falls  into  bars  of  musical  rhythm,  and  chimes  and  cadences 
of  silver  melody.  I  have  heard  some  fine  music,  as  men  are  wont 
to  speak  —  the  play  of  orchestras,  the  anthems  of  choirs,  the  voices 
of  song  that  moved  admiring  nations.  But  in  the  lofty  passes  of 
the  Alps  I  heard  a  music  overhead  from  God's  cloudy  orchestra, 
t^e  giant  peaks  of  rock  and  ice,  curtained  in  by  the  driving  mist, 
and  only  dimly  visible,  athwart  the  sky,  through  its  folds,  such  as 
mocks  all  sounds  our  lower  worlds  of  art  can  ever  hope  to  raise.  I 
stood  (excuse  the  simplicity)  calling  to  them,  in  the  loudest  shouts 


252 


SPECIMENS  OP 


I  could  raise,  even  till  my  power  was  spent,  and  listening  in  com- 
pulsory trance  to  their  reply.  I  heard  them  roll  it  up  through 
their  cloudy  worlds  of  snow,  sifting  out  the  harsh  qualities  that 
were  tearing  in  it  as  demon  screams  of  sin,  holding  on  upon  it  as 
if  it  were  a  hymn  they  were  fining  to  the  ear  of  the  great  Creator, 
and  sending  it  round  and  round  in  long  reduplications  of  sweet- 
ness, minute  after  minute,  till,  finally  receding  and  rising,  it  trem- 
bled, as  it  were,  among  the  quick  gratulations  of  angels,  and  fell 
into  the  silence  of  the  pure  empyrean.  I  had  never  any  concep- 
tion before  of  what  is  meant  by  quality  in  sound.  There  was 
more  power  upon  the  soul,  in  one  of  those  simple  notes,  than  I 
ever  expect  to  feel  from  anything  called  music  below,  or  ever  can 
feel  till  I  hear  them  again  in  the  choirs  of  the  angelic  world.  I 
had  never  such  a  sense  of  purity,  or  of  what  a  simple  sound  may 
tell  of  purity,  by  its  own  pure  quality ;  and  I  could  not  but  say, 
0,  my  God,  teach  me  this  !  be  this  in  me  forever  !  And  I  can 
truly  affirm  that  the  experience  of  that  hour  has  consciously  made 
me  better  able  to  think  of  God  ever  since  —  better  able  to  worship. 
All  other  sounds  are  gone,  —  the  sounds  of  yesterday  heard  in  the 
silence  of  enchanted  multitudes  are  gone,  —  but  that  is  with  me 
still,  and  I  hope  will  never  cease  to  ring  in  my  spirit,  till  I  go 
down  to  the  slumber  of  silence  itself! 


EARLY  DAYS  OF  THE  REVOLUTION.—/.  T.  Austin. 

Massachusetts  is  the  mother  of  the  Revolution.  Her  efforts  in 
its  commencement  are  too  honorable  to  be  omitted  in  the  heraldry 
of  her  fame.  Earliest  and  alone,  —  without  aid,  without  allies, 
connections  or  confederacy,  —  singly,  by  her  own  will,  she  dis- 
solved the  royal  powers  within  her  own  territory  and  over  her  own 
people,  and  assumed  to  herself  the  prerogative  of  independence. 
When  her  congress  of  delegates  assembled  at  Watertown,  in 
defiance  of  the  royal  charter,  and  spurned  the  representatives  of 
the  crown,  and  assumed  the  powers  of  civil  government,  and  took 
possession  of  the  public  treasury,  and  levied  taxes,  and  established 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


253 


a  navy,  and  commissioned  that  American  vessel  of  war  that  first 
captured  a  British  ship  on  the  ocean,  and  erected  maritime  courts, 
and  appointed  judges,  and  administered  justice  to  belligerent  and 
neutral  by  the  law  of  nations,  and  raised  an  army,  and  nominated 
officers,  and  gathered  soldiers  under  the  pine-tree  banner  of  Mas- 
sachusetts, and  poured  out  a  rich  libation  of  blood  on  the  battle- 
field of  freedom,  the  colonial  character  was  at  an  end.  The  Rev- 
olution had  begun.  The  state  was  then  free,  sovereign,  and  inde- 
pendent. 

Bring  to  the  imagination  that  band  of  determined  men,  assem- 
bled at  Watertown,  unarmed  and  defenceless,  within  cannon-shot 
of  a  disciplined  army ;  their  fortunes  in  the  camp  of  a  military 
commander,  whose  dignity  they  had  offended ;  their  persons  liable 
to  be  seized  and  sent  to  Europe,  as  traitors ;  their  conduct 
impeached  in  a  public  proclamation,  and  two  of  them  proscribed  as 
rebels,  whose  offences  were  too  heinous  for  the  pardon  of  the  king. 
Judge  of  their  anxiety,  in  that  time  that  tried  nien's  souls ;  their 
immense  responsibility  to  the  country,  whose  destiny  they  directed ; 
to  their  children,  for  the  protection  that  was  due  to  them  ;  to  pos- 
terity, for  that  political  condition  which  would  be  a  legacy  of  honor 
or  of  shame ;  to  their  God,  before  whom  they  were  answerable, 
and  felt  themselves  answerable,  for  all  the  blood  of  a  war  they 
might  accelerate  or  prevent.  How  indistinct  their  vision  of  the 
future,  even  when  a  strong  faith  threw  its  light  upon  their  souls  ! 
How  difficult  their  task  to  keep  up  the  courage  of  the  timid,  the 
hopes  of  the  desponding,  the  strength  of  the  feeble ;  to  enlighten 
the  ignorant,  restrain  the  rash,  supply  the  destitute,  and  impart  to 
all  the  pure  motives  which  consecrate  success  !  Here  was  no  mad 
ambition,  no  lust  of  power,  no  allurement  of  interest,  no  scheme 
of  personal  distinction.  Few  of  them  are  remembered  in  history. 
Yet  these  are  they  whose  light  gave  promise  of  a  coming  dawn. 
If  they  recede  from  the  general  gaze,  it  is  in  the  noon-tide  splendor 
of  a  brighter  day. 

"  They  set  as  sets  the  morning  star,  which  goes 
Not  down  behind  the  darkened  west,  nor  hides 
Obscured  among  the  tempests  of  the  sky, 
But  melts  away  into  tho  light  of  heaven  " 

22 


254 


SPECIMENS  OF 


Had  these  men  proved  incompetent  to  the  task,  the  battle 
for  that  generation  would  have  been  lost  when  it  began.  Inde- 
pendence might,  indeed,  have  been  obtained,  for  no  foreign  power 
could  long  hold  a  continent  in  its  grasp ;  but  the  struggle  must 
have  been  made  in  this  age,  and  not  that ;  and  the  desolation  of 
civil  war,  which  marks  the  times  of  our  forefathers,  would  have 
been  the  melancholy  history  of  our  own. 


THE  MECHANICAL  EPOCH.  —  /.  P.  Kennedy. 

The  world  is  now  entering  upon  the  mechanical  epoch.  There 
is  nothing  in  the  future  more  sure  than  the  great  triumphs  which 
that  epoch  is  to  achieve.  It  has  already  advanced  to  some  glorious 
conquests.  What  miracles  of  mechanical  invention  already  crowd 
upon  us!  Look' abroad,  and  contemplate  the  infinite  achievements 
of  the  steam  power.  Reflect  a  moment  on  all  that  has  been  done 
by  the  railroad.  Pause  to  estimate,  if  you  can,  with  all  the  help 
of  imagination,  what  is  to  result  from  the  agency  now  manifested 
in  the  operations  of  the  telegraph.  Cast  a  thought  over  the  whole 
field  of  scientific  mechanical  improvement  and  its  application  to 
human  wants,  in  the  last  twenty  years,  —  to  go  no  further  back, 
—  and  think  what  a  world  it  has  made  ;  —  how  many  comforts  it 
has  given  to  man,  how  many  facilities ;  what  it  has  done  for  his 
fcod  and  raiment,  for  his  communication  with  his  fellow-man  in 
every  clime,  for  his  instruction  in  books,  his  amusements,  his 
safety !  —  what  new  lands  it  has  opened,  what  old  ones  made 
accessible  !  —  how  it  has  enlarged  the  sphere  of  his  knowledge  and 
conversancy  with  his  species  !  It  is  all  a  great,  astounding  mar- 
vel, a  miracle  which  it  oppresses  the  mind  to  think  of.  It  is  the 
smallest  boast  which  can  be  made  for  it  to  say  that,  in  all  desirable 
facilities  in  life,  in  the  comfort  that  depends  upon  mechanism,  and 
in  all  that  is  calculated  to  delight  the  senses  or  instruct  the  mind, 
the  man  of  this  day,  who  has  secured  himself  a  moderate  compe- 
tence, is  placed  far  in  advance  of  the  most  wealthy,  powerful  and 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


255 


princely,  of  ancient  times,  —  might  I  not  say,  of  the  times  less 
than  a  century  gone  by  ? 

And  yet  we  have  only  begun  —  we  are  but  on  the  threshold  of 
this  epoch.  A  great  celebration  is  now  drawing  to  a  close,  — 
the  celebration,  by  all  nations,  of  the  new  era.  A  vast  multitude 
of  all  peoples,  nations  and  tongues,  has  been,  but  yesterday,  gath- 
ered under  a  magnificent  crystal  palace,  in  the  greatest  city  of  the 
world,  to  illustrate  and  distinguish  the  achievements  of  art,  —  no 
less,  also,  to  dignify  and  exalt  the  great  mechanical  fraternity  who 
have  filled  that  palace  with  wonders.  Is  not  this  fact,  of  itself, 
charged  with  a  volume  of  comment  ?  What  is  it  but  the  setting 
of  the  great  distinctive  seal  upon  the  nineteenth  century  ?  —  an 
advertisement  of  the  fact  that  society  has  risen  to  occupy  a  higher 
platform  than  ever  before  ?  — a  proclamation  from  the  high  places, 
announcing  honor,  honor  immortal,  to  the  workmen  who  fill  this 
world  with  beauty,  comfort  and  power ;  honor  to  be  forever  em- 
balmed in  history,  to  be  perpetuated  in  monuments,  to  be  written 
in  the  hearts  of  this  and  succeeding  generations ! 


JUSTICE  TO  ENGLAND.  — C.  Sprague. 

If,  in  remembering  the  oppressed,  you  think  the  oppressors 
ought  not  to  be  forgotten,  I  might  urge  that  the  splendid  result  of 
the  great  struggle  should  fully  reconcile  us  to  the  madness  of  those 
who  rendered  that  struggle  necessary.  "We  may  forgive  the  pre- 
sumption which  "  declared  "  its  right  "  to  bind  the  American  colo- 
nies," for  it  was  wofully  expiated  by  the  humiliation  which  "  ac- 
knowledged "  those  same  "American  colonies"  to  be  " sovereign 
and  independent  states."  The  immediate  workers,  too,  of  that 
political  iniquity,  have  passed  away.  The  mildew  of  shame  will 
forever  feed  upon  their  memories ;  —  a  brand  has  been  set  upon 
their  deeds,  that  even  Time's  all-gnawing  tooth  can  never  destroy. 
But  they  have  passed  away ;  and  of  all  the  millions  they  mis- 
ruled, the  millions  they  would  have  misruled,  how  few  remain ! 
Another  race  is  there  to  lament  the  folly,  another  here  to 


256 


SPECIMENS  0? 


magnify  the  wisdom,  that  cut  the  knot  of  empire.  Shall  these 
inherit  and  entail  everlasting  enmity  ?  Like  the  Carthaginian 
Hamilcar,  shall  we  come  up  hither  with  our  children,  and  on  this 
holy  altar  swear  the  pagan  oath  of  undying  hate?  Even  our 
goaded  fathers  disdained  this.  Let  us  fulfil  their  words,  and  prove 
to  the  people  of  England  that  "  in  peace  "  we  know  how  to  treat 
them  "  as  friends."  They  have  been  twice  told  that  "  in  war  "  we 
know  how  to  meet  them  "as  enemies;"  and  they  will  hardly  ask 
another  lesson,  for,  it  may  be  that,  when  the  third  trumpet  shall 
sound,  a  voice  will  echo  along  their. sea-girt  cliffs  — "The  glory 
has  departed !  " 

Some  few  of  their  degenerate  ones,  tainting  the  bowers  where 
they  sit,  decry  the  growing  greatness  of  a  land  they  will  not  love ; 
and  others,  after  eating  from  our  basket,  and  drinking  from  our 
cup,  go  home  to  pour  forth  the  senseless  libel  against  a  people  at 
whose  firesides  they  were  warmed.  But  a  few  pens  dipped  in  gall 
will  not  retard  our  progress ;  let  not  a  few  tongues  festering  in 
falsehood  disturb  our  repose.  We  have  those  among  us  who  are 
able  both  to  pare  the  talons  of  the  kite  and  pull  out  the  fangs  of 
the  viper ;  who  can  lay  bare,  for  the  disgust  of  all  good  men,  the 
gangrene  of  the  insolent  reviewer,  and  inflict  such  a  cruel  mark  on 
the  back  of  the  mortified  runaway,  as  will  take  long  from  him  the 
blessed  privilege  of  being  forgotten. 

These  rude  detractors  speak  not,  we  trust,  the  feelings  of  their 
nation.  Time,  the  great  corrector,  is  there  fast  enlightening  both 
ruler  and  ruled.  They  are  treading  in  our  steps,  even  ours ;  and 
are  gradually,  though  slowly,  pulling  up  their  ancient  religious 
and  political  landmarks.  Yielding  to  the  liberal  spirit  of  the  age, 
—  a  spirit  born  and  fostered  here,  —  they  are  not  only  loosening 
their  own  long-riveted  shackles,  but  are  raising  the  voice  of  encour- 
agement, and  extending  the  hand  of  assistance,  to  the  "  rebels  "  of 
other  climes. 

In  spite  of  all  that  has  passed,  we  owe  England  much ;  and 
even  on  this  occasion,  standing  in  the  midst  of  my  generous-minded 
countrymen,  I  may  fearlessly,  willingly,  acknowledge  the  debt. 
We  owe  England  much ;  — nothing  for  her  martyrdoms ;  nothing 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


257 


for  her  proscriptions ;  nothing  for  the  innocent  blood  with  which 
she  has  stained  the  white  robes  of  religion  and  liberty  ;  —  these 
claims  our  fathers  cancelled,  and  her  monarch  rendered  them  and 
theirs  a  full  acquittance  forever.  But  for  the  living  treasures  of 
her  mind,  garnered  up  and  spread  abroad  for  centuries  by  her  great 
and  gifted,  who  that  has  drank  at  the  sparkling  streams  of  her 
poetry,  who  that  has  drawn  from  the  deep  fountains  of  her  wisdom, 
who  that  speaks  and  reads  and  thinks  her  language,  will  be  slow 
to  own  his  obligation  ?  One  of  your  purest  ascended  patriots,  — 
Quincy,  —  he  who  compassed  sea  and  land  for  liberty,  whose  early 
voice  for  her  echoed  round  yonder  consecrated  hall,  whose  dying 
accents  for  her  went  up  in  solitude- and  suffering  from  the  ocean, 
—  when  he  sat  down  to  bless,  with  the  last  token  of  a  father's 
remembrance,  the  son  who  wears  his  mantle  with  his  name, 
bequeathed  him  the  recorded  lessons  of  England's  best  and  wisest, 
and  sealed  the  legacy  of  love  with  a  prayer,  whose  full  accomplish- 
ment we  live  to  witness,  —  "  that  the  spirit  of  liberty  might  rest 
upon  him." 


EXAMPLE  OF  AMERICA.  —  C.  M.  Clay. 

How  many,  like  the  great  Emmet,  have  died,  and  left  only  a 
name  to  attract  our  admiration  for  their  virtues,  and  our  regret  for 
their  untimely  fall,  to  excite  to  deeds  which  they  would  but  could 
not  effect !  But  what  has  Washington  left  behind,  save  the  glory 
of  a  name  ?  The  independent  mind,  the  conscious  pride,  the  enno- 
bling principle  of  the  soul,  —  a  nation  of  freemen.  What  did  he 
leave  ?  He  left  us  to  ourselves.  This  is  the  sum  of  our  liberties, 
the  first  principle  of  government,  the  power  of  public  opinion,  — 
public  opinion,  the  only  permanent  power  on  earth.  When  did  a 
people  flourish  like  Americans  ?  Yet  where,  in  a  time  of  peace, 
has  more  use  been  made  with  the  pen  >  or  less  with  the  sword  of 
power?  When  did  a  religion  nourish  like  the  Christian,  since 
they  have  done  away  with  intolerance  ?  Since  men  have  come  to 
believe  and  know  that  physical  force  cannot  affect  the  immortal 
part,  and  that  religion  is  between  the  conscience  and  the  Creator 
22* 


258 


SPECIMENS  OF 


only.  He  of  622,  who  with  the  sword  propagated  his  doctrines 
throughout  Arabia  and  the  greater  part  of  the  barbarian  world 
against  the  power  of  whose  tenets  the  physical  force  of  all  Chris- 
tendom was  oj)posed  in  vain,  under  the  effective  operations  of  free- 
dom of  opinion  is  fast  passing  the  way  of  all  error. 

Napoleon,  the  contemporary  of  our  Washington,  is  fast  dying 
away  from  the  lips  of  men.  He  who  shook  the  whole  civilized 
earth,  —  who,  in  an  age  of  knowledge  and  concert  among  nations, 
held  the  world  at  bay,  —  at  whose  exploits  the  imagination  becomes 
bewildered,  —  who,  in  the  eve  of  his  glory,  was  honored  with  the 
pathetic  appellation  of  "  the  last  lone  captive  of  millions  in  war," 
—  even  he  is  now  known  only  in  history.  The  vast  empire  was 
fast  tumbling  to  ruins  whilst  he  yet  held  the  sword.  He  passed 
away,  and  left  "  no  successor "  there !  The  unhallowed  light 
which  obscured  is  gone;  but  brightly  beams  yet  the  name  of 
Washington ! 

This  freedom  of  opinion,  which  has  done  so  much  for  the  politi- 
cal and  religious  liberty  of  America,  has  not  been  confined  to  this 
continent.  People  of  other  countries  begin  to  inquire,  to  examine, 
and  to  reason  for  themselves.  Error  has  fled  before  it,  and  the 
most  inveterate  prejudices  are  dissolved  and  gone.  Such  unlim- 
ited remedy  has  in  some  cases,  indeed,  apparently  proved  injurious, 
but  the  evil  is  to  be  attributed  to  the  peculiarity  of  the  attendant 
circumstances,  or  the  ill-timed  application.  Let  us  not  force  our 
tenets  upon  foreigners.  For,  if  we  subject  opinion  to  coercion,  who 
shall  be  our  inquisitors  ?  No ;  let  us  do  as  we  have  done,  as  we 
are  now  doing,  and  then  call  upon  the  nations  to  examine,  to  scru- 
tinize, and  to  condemn !  No !  they  cannot  look  upon  America, 
to-day,  and  pity ;  for  the  gladdened  heart  disclaims  all  woe.  They 
cannot  look  upon  her,  and  deride ;  for  genius,  and  literature,  and 
science,  are  soaring  above  the  high  places  of  birth  and  pageantry. 
They  cannot  look  upon  us,  and  defy ;  for  the  hearts  of  thirteen  mil- 
lions are  warm  in  virtuous  emulation  —  their  arms  steeled  in  tho 
cause  of  their  country.  Her  productions  are  wafted  to  every 
shore ;  her  flag  is  seen  waving  in  every  sea.    She  has  wrested  the 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


259 


rlorious  motto  from  the  once  queen  of  the  sea,  and  high  on  our 
manner,  by  the  stars  and  stripes  is  seen : 

"  Columbia  needs  no  bulwark, 
No  towers  along  the  steep  , 
Her  march  is  o'er  the  mountain  wave, 
Her  home  is  on  the  deep." 


EULOGY  UPON  HENRY  CLAY.  —  J.  J.  Crittenden. 

I  am  to  address  you  in  commemoration  of  the  public  services  of 
lenry  Clay,  and  in  celebration  of  his  obsequies.  His  death  filled 
is  whole  country  with  mourning,  and  the  loss  of  no  citizen,  save 
le  Father  of  his  Country,  has  ever  produced  such  manifestations 
7  the  grief  and  homage  of  the  public  heart.  His  history  has 
deed  been  read  "  in  a  nation's  eyes."  A  nation's  tears  proclaim, 
ith  their  silent  eloquence,  its  sense  of  the  national  loss.  Ken- 
tcky  has  more  than  a  common  share  in  this  national  bereavement. 
3  her  it  is  a  domestic  grief,  —  to  her  belongs  the  sad  privilege  of 
;ing  the  chief  mourner.  He  was  her  favorite  son,  her  pride,  and 
;r  glory.  She  mourns  for  him  as  a  mother.  But  let  her  not 
ourn  as  those  who  have  no  hope  nor  consolation.  She  can  find 
e  richest  and  noblest  solace  in  the  memory  of  her  son,  and  of  his 
eat  and  good  actions ;  and  his  fame  will  come  back,  like  a  com- 
rter,  from  his  grave,  to  wipe  away  her  tears.  Even  while  she 
;eps  for  him,  her  tears  shall  be  mingled  with  the  proud  feelings 

triumph  which  his  name  will  inspire ;  and  Old  Kentucky,  from 
e  depths  of  her  affectionate  and  heroic  heart,  shall  exclaim,  like 
e  Duke  of  Ormond,  when  informed  that  his  brave  son  had  fallen 
:  battle,  "  I  would  not  exchange  my  dead  son  for  any  living  son 

Christendom."  From  these  same  abundant  sources  we  may 
ipe  that  the  widowed  partner  of  his  life,  who  now  sits  in  sadness 
;  Ashland,  will  derive  some  pleasing  consolations.    I  presume  not 

offer  any  words  of  comfort  of  my  own.    Her  grief  is  too  sacred 

permit  me  to  use  that  privilege. 

Henry  Clay  lived  in  a  most  eventful  period,  and  the  history  of 


260 


SPECIMENS  OF 


his  life  for  forty  years  has  been  literally  that  of  his  country.  lie 
was  so  identified  with  the  government  for  more  than  two-thirds 
of  its  existence,  that,  during  that  time,  hardly  any  act  which  lias 
redounded  to  its  honor,  its  prosperity,  its  present  rank  among  the 
nations  of  the  earth,  can  be  spoken  of,  without  calling  to  mind 
involuntarily  the  lineaments  of  his  noble  person.  It  would  be 
difficult  to  determine  whether  in  peace  or  in  war,  in  the  field  of 
legislation  or  of  diplomacy,  in  the  spring-tide  of  his  life  or  in  its 
golden  ebb,  he  won  the  highest  honor.  It  can  be  no  disparage- 
ment to  any  one  of  his  contemporaries  to  say,  that,  in  all  the 
points  of  practical  statesmanship,  he  encountered  no  superior  in 
any  of  the  employments  which  his  constituents  or  his  country  con- 
ferred upon  him. 

Henry  Clay  wTas  indebted  to  no  adventitious  circumstances  foj 
the  success  and  glory  of  his  life.    Sprung  from  an  humble  stock 
"he  was  fashioned  to  much  honor  from  his  cradle;"  and  hi 
achieved  it  by  the  noble  use  of  the  means  which  God  and  natun 
had  given  him.    He  was  no  scholar,  and  had  none  of  the  advan 
tages  of  collegiate  education.    But  there  was  a  "  divinity  tha 
stirred  within  him."    He  was  a  man  of  a  genius  mighty  enoug' 
to  supply  all  the  defects  of  education.    By  its  keen,  penetratin 
observation,  its  quick  apprehension,  its  comprehensive  and  clea 
conception,  he  gathered  knowledge  without  the  study  of  books  ;- 
he  could  draw  it  from  the  fountain  head,  —  pure  and  undefined 
it  was  unborrowed  ;  the  acquisition  of  his  own  observation,  reflet 
tion,  and  experience;  and  all  his  own.    It  entered  into  the  con 
position  of  the  man,  forming  part  of  his  mind,  and  strengthenin 
and  preparing  him  for  all  those  great  scenes  of  intellectual  ext 
tion  or  controversy  in  which  his  life  was  spent.    His  armor  wi 
always  on,  and  he  was  ever  ready  for  the  battle. 

This  mighty  genius  was  accompanied,  in  him,  by  all  the  qua! 
ties  necessary  to  sustain  its  action,  and  to  make  it  most  irresistibl 
His  person  was  tall  and  commanding,  and  his  demeanor  — 

"  Lofty  and  sour  to  thein  that  loved  him  not  ; 
But  to  those  men  that  sought  him,  sweet  as  summer." 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


261 


He  was  direct  and  honest,  ardent  and  fearless,  prompt  to  form 
his  opinions,  always  bold  in  their  avowal,  and  sometimes  impetuous, 
or  evea  rash,  in  their  vindication.  In  the  performance  of  his 
duties  he  feared  no  responsibility.  He  scorned  all  evasion  of 
untruth.    No  pale  thoughts  ever  troubled  his  decisive  mind. 

"Be  just  and  fear  not"  was  the  sentiment  of  his  heart  and  the 
principle  of  his  action.  It  regulated  his  conduct  in  private  and 
public  life  ;  all  the  ends  he  aimed  at  were  his  country's,  his  God's, 
and  truth's. 

Such  was  Henry  Clay,  and  such  were  his  talents,  qualities,  and 
objects.  Nothing  but  success  and  honor  could  attend  such  a  char- 
acter. For  nearly  half  a  century  he  was  an  informing  spirit,  bril- 
liant and  heroic  figure  in  our  political  sphere,  marshalling  our 
country  in  the  way  she  ought  to  go.  The  "  bright  track  of  his 
fiery  car"  may  be  traced  through  the  whole  space  over  which,  in 
his  day,  his  country  and  its  government  have  passed  in  the  way  to 
greatness  and  renown.  It  will  still  point  the  way  to  further  great- 
ness and  renown. 

The  great  objects  of  his  public  life  were  to  preserve  and 
strengthen  the  Union ;  to  maintain  the  constitution  and  laws  of 
the  United  States;  -to  cherish  industry;  to  protect  labor;  and 
to  facilitate,  by  all  proper  national  improvements,  the  communica- 
tion between  all  the  parts  of  our  widely-extended  country.  This 
was  his  American  system  of  policy.  With  inflexible  patriotism 
he  pursued  and  advocated  it  to  his  end.  He  was  every  inch  an 
American.  His  heart,  and  all  that  there  was  of  him,  were  de- 
voted to  his  country,  to  its  liberty,  and  its  free  institutions.  He 
inherited  the  spirit  of  the  Revolution,  in  the  midst  of  which  he  was 
born ;  and  the  love  of  liberty  and  the  pride  of  freedom  were  in 
him  principles  of  action. 

A  remarkable  trait  in  the  character  of  Mr.  Clay  was  his  inflex- 
ibility in  defending  the  public  interest  against  all  schemes  for  its 
detriment.  His  exertions  were,  indeed,  so  steadily  employed  and 
so  often  successful  in  protecting  the  public  against  the  injurious 
designs  of  visionary  politicians  or  party  demagogues,  that  he  may 
be  almost  said  to  have  been,  during  forty  years,  the  guardian 


262 


SPECIMENS  OP 


angel  of  the  country  He  never  would  compromise  the  public 
interest  for  anybody,  or  for  any  personal  advantage  to  himself. 

He  was  the  advocate  of  liberty  throughout  the  world,  and  his 
voice  of  cheering  was  raised  in  behalf  of  every  people  who  strug. 
gled  for  freedom.  Greece,  awakened  from  a  long  sleep  of  servi- 
tude, heard  his  voice,  and  was  reminded  of  her  own  Demosthenes 
South  America,  too,  in  her  struggle  for  independence,  heard  hi; 
brave  words  of  encouragement,  and  her  fainting  heart  was  ani 
mated,  and  her  arm  made  strong. 

Henry  Clay  is  the  fair  representative  of  the  age  in  which  ht 
lived ;  an  age  which  forms  the  greatest  and  brightest  era  in  th( 
history  of  man ;  an  age  teeming  with  new  discoveries  and  de 
velopments,  extending  in  all  directions  the  limits  of  humai 
knowledge,  —  exploring  the  agencies  and  elements  of  the  physica 
world,  and  turning  and  subjugating  them  to  the  uses  of  man,— 
unfolding  and  establishing,  practically,  the  great  principles  oi 
popular  rights  and  free  governments,  and  which,  nothing  doubt 
ing,  nothing  fearing,  still  advances  in  majesty,  aspiring  to  ant 
demanding  further  improvement  and  further  amelioration  of  thi 
condition  of  mankind. 

With  the  chivalrous  and  benignant  spirit  of  this  great  er; 
Henry  Clay  was  thoroughly  imbued.  He  was,  indeed,  moulded  h) 
it,  and  made  in  its  own  image.  That  spirit,  be  it  remembered,  tvu. 
not  one  of  licentiousness,  or  turbulence,  or  blind  innovation.  I 
was  a  wise  spirit,  good  and  honest  as  it  was  resolute  and  brave 
and  truth  and  justice  were  its  companions  and  guides. 

These  noble  qualities  of  truth  and  justice  were  conspicuous  ii 
the  whole  public  life  of  Henry  Clay.  On  that  solid  foundatioi 
he  stood  erect  and  fearless ;  and  when  the  storms  of  state  bea 
around  and  threatened  to  overwhelm  him,  his  exclamation  was  stil 
heard,  "  Truth  is  mighty,  and  public  justice  certain."  What  i 
magnificent  and  heroic  figure  does  Henry  Clay  here  present  to  fch< 
world!  We  can  but  stand  before  and  look  upon  it  in  silent  m 
erence.  His  appeal  was  not  in  vain  ;  —  the  passions  of  party  »1 
sided,  truth  and  justice  resumed  their  sway,  and  his  generous  coun 
try  men  repaid  him  for  all  the  wrong  they  had  done  him  with  gmt 
itude,  affection  and  admiration,  in  his  life,  and  tears  for  his  death 


AMEIUCAN  ELOQUENCE. 


263 


It  has  been  objected  to  Henry  Clay  that  he  was  ambitious.  So 
he  was.  But  in  him  ambition  was  virtue.  It  sought  only  the 
proper,  fair  objects  of  honorable  ambition,  and  it  sought  these  by 
honorable  means  only,  —  by  so  serving  the  country  as  to  deserve 
its  favors  and  its  honors.  If  he  sought  office,  it  was  for  the  pur- 
pose of  enabling  him,  by  the  power  it  would  give,  to  serve  his 
country  more  effectually  and  preeminently ;  and,  if  he  expected 
and  desired  thereby  to  advance  his  own  fame,  who  will  say  that 
was  a  fault  ?  Who  will  say  that  it  was  a  fault  to  seek  and  desire 
office  for  any  of  the  personal  gratifications  it  may  afford,  so  long 
as  those  gratifications  are  made  subordinate  to  the  public  good  ? 

That  Henry  Clay's  object  in  desiring  office  was  to  serve  his 
countryj  and  that  he  would  have  made  all  other  considerations 
subservient,  I  have  no  doubt.  I  knew  him  well,  —  I  had  full 
opportunity  of  observing  him  in  his  most  unguarded  moments  and 
conversations,  —  and  I  can  say  that  I  have  never  known  a  more 
unselfish,  a  more  faithful  or  intrepid  representative  of  the  people, 
of  the  people's  rights,  and  the  people's  interests,  than  Henry  Clay. 

It  was  most  fortunate  for  Kentucky  to  have  such  a  representa- 
tive, and  most  fortunate  for  him  to  have  such  a  constituent  as 
Kentucky ;  fortunate  for  him  to  have  been  thrown,  in  the  early 
and  susceptible  period  of  his  life,  into  the  primitive  society  of  her 
bold  and  free  people.  As  one  of  her  children,  I  am  pleased  to 
think  that  from  that  source  he  derived  some  of  that  magnanimity 
and  energy  which  his  after  life  so  signally  displayed.  I  am  pleased 
to  think,  that,  mingling  with  all  his  great  qualities,  there  was  a 
sort  of  Kentuckyism  (I  shall  not  undertake  to  define  it),  which, 
•though  it  may  not  have  polished  or  refined,  gave  to  them  additional 
point  and  power,  and  free  scope  of  action. 

You  all  knew  Mr.  Clay ;  your  knowledge  and  recollection  of 
him  will  present  him  more  vividly  to  your  minds  than  any  picture 
I  can  draw  of  him.  This  I  will  add,  —  he  was  in  the  highest, 
truest  sense  of  the  term,  a  great  man,  and  we  ne'er  shall  look 
upon  his  like  again.  He  has  gone  to  join  the  mighty  dead  in 
another  and  better  world.  How  little  is  there  of  such  a  man  that 
can  die  !    His  fame,  the  memory  of  his  benefactions,  the  lessons 


2G4 


SPECIMENS  OF 


of  his  wisdom,  all  remain  with  us,  —  over  these  death  has  no 
power. 

How  few  of  the  great  of  this  world  have  been  so  fortunate  as 
he  !  How  few  of  them  have  lived  to  see  their  labors  so  rewarded ! 
He  lived  to  see  the  country  that  he  loved  and  served  advanced  to 
great  prosperity  and  renown,  and  still  advancing.  He  lived  till 
every  prejudice  which  at  any  period  of  his  life  had  existed  against 
him  was  removed ;  and  until  he  had  become  the  object  of  the  rev- 
erence, love  and  gratitude,  of  his  whole  country.  His  work 
seemed  then  to  be  completed,  and  fate  could  not  have  selected  a 
happier  moment  to  remove  him  from  the  troubles  and  vicissitudes 
of  this  life. 

Glorious  as  his  life  was,  there  was  nothing  that  became  him  like 
the  leaving  of  it.  I  saw  him  frequently  during  the  slow  and  lin- 
gering disease  which  terminated  his  life.  He  was  conscious  of  his 
approaching  end,  and  prepared  to  meet  it  with  all  the  resignation 
and  fortitude  of  a  Christian  hero.  He  was  all  patience,  meek- 
ness, and  gentleness ;  these  shone  round  him  like  a  mild,  celes- 
tial light,  breaking  upon  him  from  another  world ; 

"And,  to  add  greater  honors  to  his  age 
Than  man  could  give,  he  died  fearing  God." 


COMPLETION  OF  THE  WABASH  AND  ERIE  CANAL.  —  L.  Cast. 

It  is  profitable  in  the  career  of  life  occasionally  to  pause  to 
withdraw  ourselves  from  the  very  busy  scenes  with  which  we  min- 
gle, and  to  look  back  upon  the  progress  we  have  made,  and  for- 
ward, as  far  as  it  is  given  to  us  to  look  forward  upon  the  prospect 
before  us.  These  are  high  places  in  the  journey  of  life,  whence 
the  region  around  is  best  contemplated  and  understood.  In  all 
time  great  events  have  been  thus  commemorated.  The  principle 
has  its  foundation  in  human  nature,  though  perverted  in  its  appli- 
cation by  power  or  superstition.  And  many  a  monument,  which 
has  survived  its  own  history  and  the  objects  of  its  founders,  yet 
looks  out  upon  the  silence  around  it,  the  solitary  evidence  of  some 
great  but  forgotten  event  in  the  fitful  drama  of  life.    And  we 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


265 


have  come  up  to-day  to  one  of  these  high  places  to  commune 
together.  We  have  met  from  many  a  portion  of  our  common 
country,  and  this  great  assemblage  testifies,  not  less  by  its  num- 
bers than  by  the  imposing  circumstances  which  surround  it,  that 
there  is  here  passing  one  of  those  scenes  which  mark  the  progress 
of  society,  and  which  form  its  character,  and  oftentimes  its  destiny. 
And  so  it  is,  and  it  is  good  for  us  to  be  here.  We  have  not  come 
to  fight  a  battle,  nor  to  commemorate  one ;  we  have  not  come  to 
worship  at  the  shrine  of  power,  to  celebrate  the  birth  or  the  death 
of  some  unworthy  ruler,  the  last  step  in  political  degradation. 
Nor  have  we  come  to  commence,  to  complete,  nor  to  commemorate, 
some  useless  but  imposing  structure,  erected  by  pride,  but  paid  for 
by  poverty.  I  would  not,  however,  be  misunderstood.  Far  be  it 
from  us  to  censure  or  to  check  those  feelings  of  love  of  country,  or 
of  religion,  which  seek  their  outpourings  in  the  erection  of  memo- 
rials upon  spots  which  have  drank  the  blood  of  the  patriot  or  of 
the  martyr.  It  is  a  tribute  of  virtue,  which  honors  the  dead  and 
the  living.  But  let  it  be  voluntary.  Then  it  will  neither  be 
unjust  in  its  object  nor  oppressive  in  its  accomplishment.  It  will 
teach  a  lesson  to  after  ages,  which  may  stimulate  virtue  to  action, 
and  give  fortitude  to  endure  till  the  day  of  deliverance  comes  with 
its  struggle  and  its  reward.  Look  at  the  mighty  pyramids  which 
rise  over  the  Arabian  and  the  Libyan  wastes,  and  which  cast  their 
shadow  far  in  the  desert,  mocking  the  researches  and  the  pride  of 
man.  They  tell  no  tale  but  the  old  tale  of  oppression.  They 
speak  in  their  very  massiveness  of  pride  and  power  on  the  one  side, 
and  misery  and  poverty  on  the  other.  One  of  the  little  channels 
which  the  Fellah  has  diverted  from  the  great  river  at  their  base, 
and  which  spreads  verdure  and  fertility  over  the  valley  that  owes 
so  much  to  God  and  so  little  to  man,  is  far  dearer  to  the  oppressed 
population  than  these  useless  and  mighty  structures. 

Our  eastern  brethren,  with  the  characteristic  liberality  and 
patriotism  which  make  the  descendants  of  the  Pilgrims  proud  of 
the  land  of  their  ancestors,  have  just  completed  and  dedicated  a 
monument  to  mark  the  site  of  the  battle  which  opened  the  greatest 
contest  between  a  powerful  empire  and  her  young  and  distant  prov- 


266 


SPECIMENS  OP 


inces,  and  whose  influence,  if  it  did  not  give  to  the  Revolution  its 
fortunate  issue,  impressed  its  character  upon  the  whole  struggle. 
We  have  no  such  place  to  hallow ;  but  we  have  the  people  to  do 
the  deeds  by  which  places  are  sanctified,  and  where  the  pilgrims  of 
liberty  come,  not  to  worship,  but  to  reflect.  We  have  not  the 
wealth  nor  those  "  appliances  "  by  which  the  long  and  imposing 
procession,  and  the  gorgeous  pageantry  which  a  great  city  can 
arrange  and  display,  affect,  and  almost  subdue,  the  imagination. 
We  have  not  the  chief  magistrate  of  the  republic,  with  his  official 
counsellors,  to  mark,  as  it  were,  with  a  national  character,  the 
occasion  of  our  assemblage.  Nor  have  we  constructed  an  obelisk, 
simple  and  severe  in  its  style,  but  lasting  as  the  deeds  it  commem- 
orates, whose  foundation  is  laid  in  the  graves  of  martyred  patriots, 
but  whose  summit  rises  towards  the  heavens,  telling  the  story  of 
their  fall,  and  proclaiming  the  gratitude  of  their  countrymen.  But 
there  are  here  stout  hearts  and  strong  hands,  —  thousands  who 
would  devote  themselves,  as  did  the  men  of  Bunker  Hill,  to  the 
cause  of  freedom,  and  who  would  fight  as  they  fought,  and  die  as 
they  died,  should  their  country  demand  the  sacrifice.  On  the  face 
of  the  globe,  liberty  has  no  more  zealous  defenders,  nor  patriotism 
more  ardent  votaries,  than  is  this  great  assembly,  the  convocation 
of  a  people  who  have  made  this  region  their  own  by  all  the  ties 
that  bind  a  man  to  his  home,  and  who  will  defend  it,  and  the 
institutions  which  belong  to  it,  by  all  the  means  that  energy  and 
intelligence  and  devotedness  have  ever  brought  to  the  great  day  of 
trial,  and  by  which  they  have  made  it  a  day  of  triumph. 

We  have  come  here  to  join  in  another  commemoration.  To 
witness  the  union  of  the  lakes  and  the  Mississippi.  To  survey 
one  of  the  noblest  works  of  man  in  the  improvement  of  that  great 
highway  of  nature,  extending  from  New  York  to  New  Orleans, 
whose  full  moral  and  physical  effects  it  were  vain  to  seek  even  to 
conjecture.  And  fitly  chosen  is  the  day  of  this  celebration.  This 
work  is  another  ligament  which  binds  together  this  great  confede- 
rated republic.  Providence  has  given  us  union,  and  many  motives 
to  preserve  it.  The  sun  never  shone  upon  a  ccuntry  abounding 
more  than  ours  in  all  the  elements  of  prosperity.    It  were  needless 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


267 


to  enumerate  the  advantages  we  enjoy,  and  which  give  us  so  dis- 
tinguished a  position  among  the  nations  of  the  world.  They  are 
seen  and  felt  in  all  those  evidences  of  prosperity  and  improvement 
which  greet  the  traveller  wherever  he  passes  through  our  country. 
And  still  more  striking  are  they  when  we  contrast  our  situation 
with  that  of  the  older  regions  of  the  world.  I  shall  not  enter  into 
the  comparison.  I  could  speak  of  it  from  personal  knowledge;  but 
the  task  would  not  be  a  pleasant  one,  for  it  would  recall  many  a 
cause  of  discontent,  and  many  a  scene  of  misery,  which  meet  the 
eye  of  the  most  careless  observer  who  exchanges  the  new  hemi- 
sphere for  the  old.  An  American,  who  does  not  return  to  his 
own  country  a  wiser  man  and  a  better  citizen,  and  prouder  and 
more  contented,  for  all  he  has  seen  abroad,  may  well  doubt  his 
own  head  or  heart,  and  may  well  be  doubted  by  his  countrymen. 

Still,  it  is  not  to  be  disguised  that,  from  the  very  constitution  of 
human  nature,  causes  may  occasionally  exist,  tending  to  weaken, 
though  they  cannot  sever,  the  bonds  which  unite  us ;  and  happy  is 
it  that  these  causes  may  be  counteracted,  and  ultimately,  we  may 
hope,  rendered  powerless,  by  measures  now  in  progress,  which  will 
add  the  ties  of  interest  to  the  dictates  of  patriotism.  Our  railroads 
and  canals  are  penetrating  every  section  of  our  territory.  They 
are  annihilating  time  and  space.  They  are  embracing  in  their 
folds  the  ocean  and  the  lake  frontiers,  and  the  great  region  extend- 
ing from  the  Alleghany  to  the  Rocky  Mountains,  through  which 
the  mighty  Mississippi  and  its  countless  tributaries  find  their  way 
to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico.  Once  let  this  work  be  completed,  and  we 
are  bound  together  by  cords  which  no  strength  can  sunder.  The 
moral  and  political  effect,  therefore,  of  the  great  work  before  us,  is 
even  more  important  than  the  physical  advantages  it  promises.  It 
will  bear  upon  its  bosom  the  products  of  a  thousand  fertile  valleys, 
and  it  will  spread  gladness  and  prosperity  over  regions  which  have 
just  been  rescued  from  the  Indians,  and  from  the  animals,  his 
co-tenants  of  the  forest,  which  minister  to  his  wants.  But  it  will 
do  more  than  this.  It  will  make  glad  the  heart  of  the  patriot. 
As  he  sails  along  it,  he  will  see,  not  merely  the  evidences  and  the 
cause  of  wealth  and  prosperity,  but  one  of  the  ties  which  knit  us 


268 


SPECIMENS  OP 


together.  By  a  process  more  fortunate  than  alchemist  ever 
imagined,  the  feeblest  element  will  be  converted  into  the  strongest 
bond.  It  will  bear  the  boat  and  its  freight  to  a  market,  where 
products  may  be  interchanged  and  wealth  acquired.  But  it  will 
interchange  interests  and  feelings  which  no  wealth  can  purchase, 
and  for  which  no  price  can  pay.  Well,  then,  may  we  rejoice,  upon 
this  day.  The  occasion  and  the  time  are  in  unison  together. 
And,  while  we  thank  God  for  the  services  and  sacrifices  which  he 
enabled  our  fathers  to  make  in  the  acquisition  of  freedom  and 
independence,  let  us  thank  him,  also,  that  we  are  able  to  strengthen 
their  work,  and  to  transmit  to  our  children,  as  they  transmitted  to 
theirs,  the  noblest  inheritance  that  belongs  to  man.  The  ark  of 
the  constitution  is  yet  untouched.  AVithered  be  the  hand  that 
would  pollute  it ! 


WISDOM  OF  THE  ANCIENTS.  —  C.  Sumner. 

It  is  often  said,  "  Let  us  not  be  wiser  than  our  fathers." 
Rather,  let  us  try  to  excel  our  fathers  in  wisdom.  Let  us  imitate 
what  in  them  was  good,  but  not  bind  ourselves,  as  in  the  chains  of 
fate,  by  their  imperfect  example.  Principles  are  higher  than 
human  examples.  Examples  may  be  followed  when  they  accord 
Avith  the  admonitions  of  duty.  But  he  is  unwise  and  wicked  who 
attempts  to  lean  upon  these,  rather  than  upon  those  truths  which, 
like  the  Everlasting  Arm,  cannot  fail! 

In  all  modesty  be  it  said,  we  have  lived  to  little  purpose,  if  we 
are  not  wiser  than  the  generations  that  have  gone  before  us.  It  is 
the  grand  distinction  of  man  that  he  is  a  progressive  being ;  that 
his  reason  at  'the  present  day  is  not  merely  the  reason  ")£  a  single 
human  being,  bat  that  of  the  whole  human  race,  in  all  ages  from 
which  knowledge  has  descended,  in  all  lands  from  which  knowle  Ig£ 
has  been  borne  away.  We  are  heirs  to  an  inheritance  of  truth, 
grandly  accumulating  from  generation  to  generation.  The  child 
at  his  mother's  knee  is  now  taught  the  orbits  of  the  heavenly 
bodies, 

"  Where  worlds  on  worlds  compose  one  universe," 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


269 


the  nature  of  this  globe,  the  character  of  the  tribes  of  men  by 
which  it  is  covered,  and  the  geography  of  nations,  to  an  extent  far 
beyond  the  ken  of  the  most  learned  of  other  days.  It  is,  there- 
fore, true,  as  has  been  said,  that  antiquity  is  the  real  infancy  of 
man;  reason  and  the  kindlier  virtues  of  age,  repudiating  and 
abhorring  force,  now  bear  sway.  We  are  the  true  ancients.  The 
single  lock  on  the  battered  forehead  of  Old  Time  is  thinner  now 
than  when  our  fathers  attempted  to  grasp  it ;  the  hour-glass  has 
been  turned  often  since ;  the  scythe  is  heavier  laden  with  the 
work  of  death.  Let  us  cease,  then,  to  look  for  a  lamp  to  our  feet 
in  the  feeble  tapers  that  glimmer  in  the  sepulchres  of  the  past. 
Rather  let  us  hail  those  ever-burning  lights  above,  in  whose  beams 
is  the  brightness  of  noonday  ! 


THE  "WEST  AND  THE  SOUTH.  — T.  H.  Ber.ton. 

Time  and  my  ability  would  fail  in  any  attempt  to  enumerate  the 
names  and  acts  of  those  generous  friends  in  the  South  who  then 
stood  forth  our  defenders  and  protectors,  and  gave  us  men  and 
money,  and  beat  the  domestic  foe  in  the  capitol,  while  we  beat  the 
foreign  foe  in  the  field.  Time  and  my  ability  would  fail  to  do 
them  justice  ;  but  there  is  one  state  in  the  South,  the  name  and 
praise  of  which  the  events  of  this  debate  would  drag  from  the 
stones  of  the  West,  if  they  could  rise  up  in  this  place  and  speak ! 
It  is  the  name  of  that  state  upon  which  the  vials,  filled  with  the 
accumulated  wrath  of  years,  have  been  suddenly  and  unexpectedly 
emptied  before  us,  on  a  motion  to  postpone  a  land  debate.  That 
state  whose  microscopic  offence  in  the  obscure  parish  of  Colleton 
is  to  be  hung  in  equipoise  with  the  organized  treason  and  deep 
damnation  of  the  Hartford  Convention ;  that  state  whose  present 
dislike  to  a  tariff  which  is  tearing  out  her  vitals  is  to  be  made  the 
means  of  exciting  the  West  against  the  whole  South ;  that  state 
whose  dislike  to  the  tariff  laws  is  to  be  made  the  pretext  for  set- 
ting up  a  despotic  authority  in  the  Supreme  Court ;  that  state 
which,  in  the  old  Congress  in  1785,  voted  for  the  reduction  of  the 
23* 


270 


SPECIMENS  OF 


price  of  public  lands  to  about  one-half  the  present  minimum ; 
which,  in  1786,  redeemed  after  it  was  lost,  and  carried  by  its 
single  vote,  the  first  measure  that  ever  was  adopted  for  the  protec- 
tion of  Kentucky  —  that  of  the  two  companies  sent  to  the  Falls 
of  Ohio ;  that  state  which  in  the  period  of  the  late  war  sent  us  a 
Lowndes,  a  Cheves,  and  a  Calhoun,  to  fight  the  battles  of  the 
West  in  the  capitol,  and  to  slay  the  Goliaths  in  the  North ;  that 
state  which  at  this  day  has  sent  to  this  chamber  the  senator 
whose  liberal  and  enlightened  speech  on  the  subject  of  the  public 
lands  has  been  seized  upon  and  made  the  pretext  for  that  pre- 
meditated aggression  upon  South  Carolina  and  the  whole  South 
which  we  have  seen  met  with  a  promptitude,  energy,  gallantry  and 
effect,  that  has  forced  the  assailant  to  cry  out  an  hundred  times 
that  he  was  still  alive,  though  we  all  could  see  that  he  was  most 
cruelly  pounded  ! 

Memory  is  the  lowest  faculty  of  the  human  mind;  —  the  irra- 
tional animals  possess  it  in  common  with  man  —  the  poor  beasts  of 
the  field  have  memory.  They  can  recollect  the  hand  that  feeds 
and  the  foot  that  kicks  them ;  and  the  instinct  of  self-preservation 
tells  them  to  follow  one  and  to  avoid  the  other.  Without  any 
knowledge  of  Greek  or  Latin,  these  mute,  irrational  creatures 
"  fear  the  Greek  offering  presents;"  they  shun  the  food  offered  by 
the  hand  that  has  been  lifted  to  take  their  life.  This  is  their 
instinct,  —  and  shall  man,  the  possessor  of  so  many  noble  faculties, 
with  all  the  benefits  of  learning  and  experience,  have  less  memory, 
less  gratitude,  less  sensibility  to  danger,  than  these  poor  beasts  ? 
And  shall  he  stand  less  upon  his  guard,  when  the  hand  that  smote 
is  stretched  out  to  entice?  Shall  man,  bearing  the  image  of  his 
Creator,  sink  thus  low  ?  Shall  the  generous  son  of  the  West  fall 
below  his  own  dumb  and  reasonless  cattle,  in  all  the  attributes  of 
memory,  gratitude,  and  sense  of  danger  ?  Shall  his  "  Timeo 
Danaos "  have  been  taught  him  in  vain  ?  Shall  he  forget  the 
things  which  he  saw,  and  part  of  which  he  was,  —  the  events  of 
the  late  war,  the  memorable  scenes  of  fifteen  years  ago  ?  The 
events  of  former  times,  of  forty  years  ago,  may  be  unknown  to 
those  who  are  born  since.    The  attempt  to  surrender  the  naviga- 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


271 


tion  of  the  Mississippi,  —  to  prevent  the  settlement  of  the  West, 

—  the  refusal  to  protect  the  early  settlers  of  Kentucky  and  Ten- 
nessee, or  to  procure  for  them  a  cession  of  Indian  lands,  —  all 
these  trials,  in  which  the  South  was  the  savior  of  the  West,  may 
be  unknown  to  the  young  generation  that  has  come  forward  since ; 
and  with  respect  to  these  events,  being  uninformed,  they  may  be 
unmindful  and  ungrateful.  They  did  not  see  them ;  and,  like  the 
second  generation  of  the  Israelites,  in  the  land  of  promise,  who 
knew  not  the  wonders  which  God  had  done  for  their  forefathers  in 
Egypt,  they  may  plead  ignorance  and  go  astray  after  strange  gods, 

—  after  the  Baals  and  the  Astaroths  of  the  heathen,  —  but  not  so 
of  the  events  of  the  last  war.  These  they  saw !  The  aid  of  the 
South  they  felt!  The  deeds  of  a  party  in  the  north-east  they  felt, 
also  !  Memory  will  do  its  office  for  both ;  and  base  and  recreant 
is  the  son  of  the  West  that  can  ever  turn  his  back  upon  the  friends 
that  saved,  to  go  into  the  arms  of  the  enemy  that  mocked  and 
scorned  him,  in  the  season  of  dire  calamity ! 


THE  LEXINGTON  MARTYRS.  —  E.  Everett, 

And  you,  brave  and  patriotic  men,  whose  ashes  are  gathered  in 
this  humble  place  of  deposit,  no  time  shall  rob  you  of  the  well- 
deserved  meed  of  praise !  You,  too,  perceived  not  less  clearly  than 
the  more  illustrious  patriots  whose  spirit  you  caught  that  the  deci- 
sive hour  had  come.  You  felt  with  them  that  it  could  not,  must 
not,  be  shunned.  You  had  resolved  it  should  not.  Reasoning, 
remonstrance  had  been  tried ;  from  your  own  town-meetings,  from 
the  pulpit,  from  beneath  the  arches  of  Faneuil  Hall,  every  note  of 
argument,  of  appeal,  of  adjuration,  had  sounded  to  the  foot  of  the 
throne,  and  in  vain.  The  wheels  of  destiny  rolled  on  ;  the  great 
design  of  Providence  must  be  fulfilled ;  the  issue  must  be  nobly 
met,  or  basely  shunned.  Strange  it  seemed,  inscrutable  it  was, 
that  your  remote  and  quiet  village  should  be  the  chosen  altar  of 
the  first  great  sacrifice.  But  so  it  was  ;  —  the  summons  came  and 
found  you  waiting ;  and  here,  in  the  centre  of  your  dwelling- 


272  SPECIMENS  OP 

places,  within  sight  of  the  homes  you  were  to  enter  no  more, 
between  the  village  church  where  your  fathers  worshipped  and  the 
grave-yard  where  they  lay  at  rest,  bravely  and  meekly,  like  Chris- 
tian heroes,  you  sealed  the  cause  with  your  blood.  Parker,  Mon- 
roe, Hadley,  the  Harringtons,  Muzzy,  Brown,  —  alas !  ye  cannot 
hear  my  words,  —  no  voice  but  that  of  the  archangel  shall  pene- 
trate your  urns  ;  but  to  the  end  of  time  your  remembrance  shall 
be  preserved !  To  the  end  of  time  the  soil  whereon  ye  fell  is  holy, 
and  shall  be  trod  with  reverence  while  America  has  a  name  among 
the  nations ! 

And  now  ye  are  going  to  lie  down  beneath  yon  simple  stone, 
which  marks  the  place  of  your  mortal  agony.  Fit  spot  for  your 
last  repose ;  — 

««  Where  should  the  soldier  rest,  but  -where  ho  fell  1  " 

For  ages  to  come  the  characters  graven  in  the  enduring  marble 
shall  tell  the  unadorned  tale  of  your  sacrifice ;  and  ages  after  that 
stone  itself  has  crumbled  into  dust  as  inexpressive  as  yours,  his- 
tory, undying  history,  shall  transmit  the  record  !  Ay,  while  the 
language  we  speak  retains  its  meaning  in  the  ears  of  men,  while 
a  sod  of  what  is  now  the  soil  of  America  shall  be  trod  by  the  foot 
of  a  freeman,  your  names  and  your  memory  shall  be  cherished  ! 


RESPECT  FOR  AMERICAN  RIGHTS  —  L.  Woodbury. 

Among  the  coral  reefs  of  the  Pacific,  or  in  sight  of  the  halls  of 
Montezuma,  —  wherever  on  land  or  ocean,  in  the  western  or  east- 
ern hemisphere  or  the  south,  by  savage,  semi-barbarian  or  civilized, 
by  Pagan,  Mahometan,  Infidel,  Turk  or  Christian,  —  wherever  an 
American  citizen  is  wronged,  or  American  property  plundered,  or 
American  rights  invaded,  there  the  stars  and  stripes  should  appear, 
and  will  protect  and  avenge.  There,  manfully,  when  all  other 
reasons  are  exhausted,  Americans  will  rush,  like  Warren  at  Ban- 
ker Hill,  or  Stark  at  Bennington,  and  hosts  of  others  through  the 
whole  length  and  breadth  of  our  Revolutionary  campaigns  ;  —  in 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


273 


iort,  like  Decaturs,  McNeils  and  Jacksons,  in  the  war  of  1812, 
r  Worths,  Scotts  and  Taylors,  since,  they  will  prove  themselves, 
n  every  fit  occasion,  ready  to  punish  the  enemies  and  redress  the 
Tongs  of  their  country.  Such  a  spirit  alone  can  save  and  per- 
etuate  the  glorious  principles  of  this  day. 

It  is  not  a  thirst  for  conquest,  but  firm  resolve  to  sustain  national 
onor.  "We  spare  the  vanquished;  and  if  we  scale  the  Alps,  it  is 
ot  to  seize  on  new  provinces,  or  ill-gotten  gold,  auri  sacra  fames, 
ut  we  purchase  and  pay  for  empires,  when  needed,  though  we 
ould  have  retained  by  the  sword  what  we  won  by  the  sword ;  and 
aus,  by  the  rights  of  war,  have  made  our  title  as  good  to  Cali- 
jrnia,  as  it  was,  by  treaty,  to  Louisiana.  A  different  temper, 
arinking  from  a  vindication  of  national  honor,  would  make  us 
aeep  to  be  devoured  by  the  wolves  around  us ;  and  allow  Santa 
mnas  to  enforce  their  menaces  to  occupy  our  capital,  rather  than 
•e  to  retaliate  invasions,  and  hoist  the  stars  and  stripes  over  the 
alls  of  Mexico.  A  different  temper,  too,  —  not  being  magnani- 
ious  to  the  conquered,  and  forbearing  to  the  fallen,  —  would  tend 
)  render  our  brave  troops  but  marauders,  or  armed  mobs,  or  fierce 
uccaneers.  Our  resistance  even  the  matrons  of  the  Revolution 
ad  the  moral  courage  to  inculcate ;  and  deserve  their  full  share 
1  its  glories,  for  inculcating  it  on  their  husbands  and  sons,  and 
xhibiting  so  many  virtues,  and  so  much  heroism,  in  the  times 
•hich  tried  men's  souls.  Our  pious  mothers  were  not  hostile  to 
le  common  enemy  wholly  for  the  oppressive  tax  on  their  tea,  but 
ecause  they  were  educated  by  the  Bible,  and  especially  by  Chris- 
anity,  in  the  great  doctrines  of  equal  rights ;  and,  like  Spartan 
•omen,  they  taught  their  descendants  —  and  deserve  their  grati- 
ude  for  the  patriotic  lesson  —  that  it  was  nobler  to  be  brought 
ome  dead  on  their  shields,  than  fly  or  submit  to  be  slaves.  A 
evolution  originating  and  conducted  like  ours  illustrates  well  the 
xcellences  of  such  a  spirit,  and  embodies  it.  A  revolution  thus 
ustified,  guided,  established,  has  become  a  model  revolution  for 
mankind ;  a  great  landmark,  a  colossal  beacon-tower  to  all  future 
ioies,  and  all  future  navigators  on  the  rough  sea  of  Liberty. 


274 


SPECIMENS  OF 


SOUTH  CAROLINA  UNDER  FEDERAL  LEGISLATION.  —  G.  McDuffie 

A  great  and  solemn  crisis  is  evidently  approaching,  and  I 
admonish  gentlemen  that  it  is  the  part  of  wisdom,  as  well  as  of 
justice,  to  pause  in  this  course  of  legislative  tyranny  and  oppres- 
sion, before  they  have  driven  a  high-minded,  loyal  and  patriotic 
people  to  something  bordering  on  despair  and  desperation.  If  the 
ancestors  of  those  who  are  now  enduring  —  too  patiently  enduring 
—  the  oppressive  burdens  unjustly  imposed  upon  them,  could  return 
from  their  graves  and  witness  the  change  which  the  federal  gov- 
ernment, in  one  quarter  of  a  century,  has  produced  in  the  entire 
aspect  of  the  country,  they  would  hardly  recognize  it  as  the  scene 
of  their  former  activity  and  usefulness.  Where  all  was  cheerful, 
and  prosperous,  and  flourishing,  and  happy,  they  would  behold 
nothing  but  decay,  and  gloom,  and  desolation,  without  a  spot  of 
verdure  to  break  the  dismal  continuity,  or  even 

"  A  rose  of  the  wilderness  left  on  its  stalk, 
To  tell  where  the  garden  had  been." 

Looking  upon  this  sad  reverse  in  the  condition  of  their  descend- 
ants, they  would  naturally  inquire  what  moral  or  political  pes- 
tilence had  passed  over  the  land,  to  blast  and  wither  the  fair 
inheritance  they  had  left  them.  And,  when  they  should  be  told 
that  a  despotic  power  of  taxation  infinitely  more  unjust  and  oppress- 
ive than  that  from  which  the  country  had  been  redeemed  by  their 
toils  and  sacrifices  was  now  assumed  and  exercised  over  us  by  our 
own  brethren,  they  would  indignantly  exclaim,  like  the  ghost  of 
the  murdered  Hamlet,  when  urging  his  afflicted  son  to  avenge  the 
tarnished  honor  of  his  house, 

"  If  you  have  nature  in  you,  bear  it  not  " 

I  feel  that  I  am  called  upon  to  vindicate  the  motives  and  the 
character  of  the  people  of  South  Carolina  from  imputations  which 
have  been  unjustly  cast  upon  them.  There  is  no  state  in  this 
Union  distinguished  by  a  more  lofty  and  disinterested  patriotism 
than  that  which  I  have  the  honor  in  part  to  represent.    I  can 


A3IEKICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


275 


proudly  and  confidently  appeal  to  history  for  proof  of  this  asser- 
tion. No  state  has  made  greater  sacrifices  to  vindicate  the  common 
rights  of  the  Union,  and  preserve  its  integrity.  No  state  is  more 
willing  to  make  those  sacrifices  now,  whether  of  blood  or  treasure. 
But  it  does  not  belong  to  this  lofty  spirit  of  patriotism  to  submit 
to  unjust  and  unconstitutional  oppression  ;  nor  is  South  Carolina 
to  be  taunted  with  the  charge  of  treason  and  rebellion,  because  she 
has  the  intelligence  to  understand  her  rights,  and  the  spirit  to 
maintain  them.  God  has  not  planted  in  the  breast  of  man  a 
higher  and  a  holier  principle  than  that  by  which  he  is  prompted  to 
resist  oppression.  Absolute  submission  and  passive  obedience  to 
every  extreme  of  tyranny  are  the  characteristics  of  slaves  only. 

The  oppression  of  the  people  of  South  Carolina  has  been  carried 
to  an  extremity  which  the  most  slavish  population  on  earth  would 
not  endure  without  a  struggle.  Is  it  to  be  expected,  then,  that 
freemen  will  patiently  bow  down  and  kiss  the  rod  of  the  oppressor  ? 
Freemen,  did  I  say  ?  Why,  sir,  any  one  who  has  the  form  and 
bears  the  name  of  a  man,  —  nay,  u  a  beast  that  wants  discourse  of 
reason,"  a  dog,  a  sheep,  a  reptile,  —  the  vilest  reptile  that  crawls 
upon  the  earth,  without  the  gift  of  reason  to  comprehend  the 
injustice  of  its  injuries,  would  bite,  or  bruise,  or  sting  the  hand  by 
which  they  were  inflicted.  Is  it,  then,  for  a  sovereign  state  to  fold 
her  arms  and  stand  still  in  submissive  apathy,  when  the  loud  clam- 
ors of  the  people  whom  Providence  has  committed  to  her  charge 
are  ascending  to  heaven  for  justice  ?  Hug  not  this  delusion  to 
your  breast,  I  pray  you  ! 

It  is  not  for  me  to  say,  in  this  place,  what  course  South  Caro- 
lina may  deem  it  her  duty  to  pursue,  in  this  great  emergency.  It 
is  enough  to  say  that  she  perfectly  understands  the  ground  which 
she  occupies;  and  be  assured,  sir,  that  whatever  attitude  she  may 
assume,  in  her  highest  sovereign  capacity,  she  will  firmly  and  fear- 
lessly maintain  it,  be  the  consequences  what  they  may.  The 
responsibility  will  not  rest  upon  her,  but  upon  her  oppressors. 

I  will  say,  in  conclusion,  that  in  ail  I  have  uttered  there  has 
not  been  mingled  one  feeling  of  personal  unkindness  to  any  human 
being,  either  in  this  house  or  out  of  it.    I  have  used  strong  lan- 


276 


SPECIMENS  OF 


guage,  to  be  sure,  but  it  has  been  uttered  "  more  in  sorrow  than  in 
anger."  I  have  felt  it  to  be  a  solemn  duty  which  I  owed  to  my 
constituents  and  to  this  nation,  to  make  one  more  solemn  appeal  to 
the  justice  of  their  oppressors.  Let  me,  then,  beseech  them,  in  the 
name  of  our  common  ancestors,  whose  blood  was  minglefl  together 
as  a  common  offering  at  the  shrine  of  our  common  liberty,  —  let 
me  beseech  them  by  all  the  endearing  recollections  of  our  common 
history,  and  by  every  consideration  that  gives  value  to  liberty  and 
the  Union  of  these  States,  to  retrace  their  steps  as  speedily  as  pos- 
sible, and  to  relieve  a  high-minded  and  patriotic  people  from  an 
unconstitutional  and  oppressive  burden,  which  they  cannot  longer 
bear ! 


DEDICATION  OF  THE  DAVIS  MONUMENT,  AT  ACTON,  MASS.— 
G.  S.  Boutwell. 

The  events  of  the  American  Revolution  can  never  fail  to  interest 
Americans.  This  assemblage,  men  of  Middlesex,  is  an  assurance 
that  you  cherish  the  Revolutionary  character  of  your  county,  and 
will  be  true  to  the  obligations  and  duties  which  it  imposes.  And 
may  we  not  reverently  believe  that  the  Ruler  of  nations,  in  the  par- 
tially shrouded  natural  beauties  of  the  day,  appropriate  to  funereal 
services  and  solemnities,  crowns  this  occasion  with  his  approval  ? 

The  event  we  commemorate  is  not  of  local  interest  only.  It 
has,  however,  little  value  on  account  of  the  number  of  men  who 
fought  or  who  fell ;  but  it  lives  as  the  opening  scene  of  a  great 
revolution,  based  on  principle,  and  destined  to  change  the  charac- 
ter of  human  governments  and  the  condition  of  the  human  race. 
The  19th  of  April,  1775,  is  not  immortal  because  men  fell  in  bat- 
tle, but  because  they  fell  choosing  death  rather  than  servitude. 
The  mere  soldier,  who  fights  without  a  cause,  is  unworthy  our 
respect ;  but  he  who  falls  in  defence  of  sound  principles  or  valued 
rights  deserves  a  nation's  gratitude.  Hence  the  battle-fields  of  the 
Revolution  shall  gain  new  lustre,  while  Austerlitz  and  Waterloo 
shall  be  dimmed  by  the  lapse  of  ages.  Each  nation  cherishes  and 
recurs  to  the  leading  events  in  its  history.    Time  increases  the 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


277 


importance  of  some  of  them  and  diminishes  the  magnitude  of  others. 
Many  of  them  are  eras  in  the  history  of  countries  and  the  world. 
Such  are  the  lives  of  great  men  —  philosophers,  poets,  orators  and 
statesmen.  Such  are  battles  and  conquests,  the  foundation  of  new 
empires  and  the  fall  of  old  ones,  changes  in  governments,  and  the 
administrations  of  renowned  monarchs.  Such  were  the  conquests 
of  Greece,  the  division  of  the  Macedonian  empire,  the  rise  and  fall 
of  Rome,  the  discovery  and  settlement  of  this  continent,  the  Eng- 
lish commonwealth,  the  accession  of  William  and  Mary  to  the 
British  throne,  the  American  Revolution,  and,  finally,  the  wars, 
empire  and  overthrow,  of  Napoleon.  A  knowledge  of  these  events 
is  not  only  valuable  in  itself,  but  it  enables  us  to  penetrate  the 
darkness  which  usually  obscures  the  daily  life  and  character  of  a 
people.  A  true  view  of  the  life  of  Socrates  gives  us  an  accurate 
idea  of  Athens  and  the  Athenian  people.  The  protectorate  of 
Cromwell,  the  great  event  in  all  English  history,  presents  a  view 
of  the  British  nation  while  passing  from  an  absolute  government 
to  a  limited  monarchy,  slowly  but  certainly  tending  to  republic- 
anism. 

The  American  Revolution  was  a  clear  indication,  in  itself,  of 
what  the  colonies  bad  been,  and  what  the  republic  was  destined  to 
be.  Had  the  Revolution  been  delayed,  no  history,  however 
minute,  could  have  given  to  the  world  so  accurate  knowledge  of 
the  colonists  from  1770  to  1780  as  it  now  possesses.  It  was  the 
full  development  of  all  their  past  history ;  it  was  the  concise,  vig- 
orous, intelligible  introduction  to  their  future.  It  was  a  great 
illustration  of  preexisting  American  character.  Neither  religious 
nor  political  fanaticism  was  an  element  of  the  American  Revolu- 
tion. It  was  altogether  defensive ;  defensive  in  its  assertion  of 
principles,  defensive  in  its  warlike  operations. 

It  is  true  that  the  Revolution  was  an  important  step  towards 
freedom  and  equality  ;  but  the  revolutionists  did  not  primarily  con- 
template the  destruction  or  abandonment  of  the  principles  of  the 
British  government,  but  rather  their  preservation  and  perpetuity 
and  this,  in  a  great  degree,  they  accomplished.    The  two  govern 
24 


278 


SPECIMENS  OF 


merits  are  dissimilar  in  many  respects ;  but  the  principles  which 
lie  at  the  foundation  of  the  one  led  to  the  formation  of  the  other. 

On  the  19th  of  April,  1775,  the  men  of  Acton  left  their  homes 
upon  these  hills,  and  their  families  anxious  and  disconsolate,  that 
they  and  their  descendants  might  have  homes  undisturbed  by  the 
hand  of  the  oppressor.  On  the  20th  of  April,  1775,  these  homes 
were  deserted,  that  all  might  pay  the  last  tribute  of  respect  to 
Davis,  Hay  ward  and  Hosmer.  And  „  now,  after  the  lapse  of 
seventy-six  years,  the  descendants  of  that  generation  have  met, 
not,  as  then,  to  mingle  their  tears  at  the  grave  of  departed  friends 
and  heroes,  but  to  utter  with  all  of  filial  respect  the  names  of 
worthy  men,  and  to  impress  with  new  power  upon  their  hearts  the 
sentiment  of  gratitude  for  all  who  served  and  suffered  in  the  cause 
of  American  freedom.  And,  as  we  contemplate  the  glorious  death 
of  those  who  fell,  shall  we  not  say, 

"  Since  all  must  life  resign, 

Those  sweet  rewards  which  decorate  the  bravo 
'T  is  folly  to  decline, 
And  steal  inglorious  to  the  silent  grave  "  1 

As  compared  with  the  existence  of  the  world,  only  a  short  space 
of  time  has  intervened  between  the  19th  of  April,  1775,  and  this 
day ;  yet  three  generations  of  men  have  trodden  these  fields  and 
aided  in  the  great  work  of  perfecting  and  preserving  American 
institutions.  With  what  confidence,  fellow-citizens,  did  your  ances- 
tors look  to  independence,  and  the  establishment  of  the  form  of 
government  under  which  we  have  lived  and  prospered  as  a  people  ? 
Beyond  this  form  neither  the  patriot  nor  statesman  can  look  with 
hope. 

Who  will  propose  to  the  nf  w  united  American  people  either  a 
return  to  the  almost  forgotten  confederacy  of  1778,  or  the  estab- 
lishment of  separate  government .?  ?  Nobody,  nobody  !  When  we 
contrast  our  institutions  with  those  of  any  other  country,  how 
ought  we  to  thank  God  for  the  moasure  of  personal  happiness  and 
political  security  we  have  enjoyed !  Not  that  our  institutions  are 
perfect,  nor  that  there  is  nothing  which  the  philanthropist  may 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


279 


deplore  or  the  statesman  condemn.  All  the  anticipations  of  our 
ancestors  have  not  been  realized.  The  past  is  not  all  perfect ;  the 
future  will  not  always  cheer  us  with  sunshine  and  smiles :  but  he 
is  a  misanthrope  who  allows  his  opinions  to  be  controlled  by  the 
exceptions  to  the  general  current  of  our  national  career. 

Our  years  of  independence  have  been  years  of  almost  uninter 
rupted  prosperity,  but  they  have  borne  to  the  grave  those  who  took 
part  in  the  later  as  well  as  earlier  contests  of  the  Revolution.  Of 
Lexington  and  Concord  only  one  remain?  ;  and  from  all  the  battle- 
fields of  the  war  this  occasion  has  brought  together  but  two.  But, 
fellow-citizens,  the  few  survivors  are  not  only  venerable  —  they 
are  sacred  men.  They  are  the  last  of  a  noble  generation.  They 
perilled  their  lives  in  behalf  of  liberty  when 

"  'Twas  treason  to  love  her  and  death  to  defend." 

Fortunate  all  are  you  whose  eyes  rest  to-day  on  these  few  surviv- 
ing soldiers  of  the  Revolution.  Fortunate  are  the  youth  and  chil- 
dren even  who  on  this  occasion  and  in  this  presence  can  pledge 
themselves  to  the  cause  of  constitutional  liberty.  Of  these  men 
the  next  generation  shall  know  only  from  history.  Fortunate, 
then,  that  your  lives  begun  before  theirs  ended. . 

The  patriot  should  do  homage  to  these  men ;  the  statesman  may 
sit  at  their  feet  and  learn  lessons  of  fidelity  to  principle,  and  citi- 
zens all  may  see  how  nobly  ends  the  life  begun  in  the  performance 
of  duty. 

To-day  the  commonwealth  of  Massachusetts  and  the  town  of 
Acton  dedicate  this  monument  to  the  memory  of  the  early  martyrs 
of  the  Revolution,  and  consecrate  it  to  the  principles  of  liberty  and 
of  patriotism.  Here  its  base  shall  rest  and  its  apex  point  to  the 
heavens  through  the  coming  centuries.  Though  it  bears  the  names 
of  humble  men,  and  commemorates  services  stern  rather  than  bril- 
liant, it  shall  be  as  immortal  as  American  history.  The  ground 
on  which  it  stands  shall  be  made  classical  by  the  deeds  which  it 
commemorates.  And  may  this  monument  exist  only  with  the 
existence  of  the  republic ;  and  when  God,  in  his  wisdom,  shall  bring 
this  government  to  naught,  as  all  human  governments  must  come 


280 


SPECIMENS  OF 


to  naught,  may  no  stone  remain  to  point  the  inquirer  to  fields  of 
valor,  or  to  remind  him  of  deeds  of  glory  !  And,  finally,  may  tha 
republic  resemble  the  sun  in  his  daily  circuit,  so  that  none  shall 
know  whether  its  path  were  more  glorious  in  the  rising  or  in  the 
setting ! 


THE  PROBLEM  FOR  THE  UNITED  STATES.  —  H.  A.  Boardman. 

This  Union  cannot  expire  as  the  snow  melts  from  the  rock,  or  a 
star  disappears  from  the  firmament.  When  it  falls,  the  crash  will 
be  heard  in  all  lands.  Wherever  the  winds  of  heaven  go,  that 
will  go,  bearing  sorrow  and  dismay  to  millions  of  stricken  hearts ; 
for  the  subversion  of  this  government  will  render  the  cause  of  con- 
stitutional liberty  hopeless  throughout  the  world.  What  nation 
can  govern  itself,  if  this  nation  cannot  ?  What  encouragement 
will  any  people  have  to  establish  liberal  institutions  for  themselves, 
if  ours  fail  ?  Providence  has  laid  upon  us  the  responsibility  and 
the  honor  of  solving  that  problem  in  which  all  coming  generations 
of  men  have  a  profound  interest,  —  whether  the  true  ends  of  gov- 
ernment can  be  secured  by  a  popular  representative  system.  In 
the  munificence  of  his  goodness,  he  put  us  in  possession  of  our 
heritage,  by  a  series  of  interpositions  scarcely  less  signal  than 
those  which  conducted  the  Hebrews  to  Canaan ;  and  he  has,  up 
to  this  period,  withheld  from  us  no  immunities  or  resources  which 
might  facilitate  an  auspicious  result.  Never  before  was  a  people 
so  advantageously  situated  for  working  out  this  great  problem  in 
favor  of  human  liberty ;  and  it  is  important  for  us  to  understand 
that  the  world  so  regards  it. 

If,  in  the  frenzy  of  our  base  sectional  jealousies,  we  dig  the 
grave  of  the  Union,  and  thus  decide  this  question  in  the  negative, 
no  tongue  may  attempt  to  depict  the  disappointment  and  despair 
which  will  go  along  with  the  announcement,  as  it  spreads  through 
distant  lands.  It  will  be  America,  after  fifty  years'  experience, 
giving  in  her  adhesion  to  the  doctrine  that  man  was  not  made  for 
self-government.  It  will  be  Freedom  herself  proclaiming  that 
freedom  is  a  chimera;  Liberty  ringing  her  own  knell,  all  over 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


281 


the  globe.  And,  when  the  citizens  or  subjects  of  the  governments 
which  are  to  succeed  this  Union  shall  visit  Europe,  and  see,  in  some 
land  now  struggling  to  cast  off  its  fetters,  the  lacerated  and  lifeless 
form  of  Liberty  laid  prostrate  under  the  iron  heel  of  despotism,  let 
them  remember  that  the  blow  which  destroyed  her  was  inflicted  by 
their  own  country. 

"  So  the  struck  eagle,  stretched  upon  the  plain, 
No  more  through  rolling  clouds  to  soar  again, 
Viewed  his  own  feather  on  the  fatal  dart, 
And  winged  the  shaft  that  quivered  in  his  heart. 
Keen  were  his  pangs,  but  keener  far  to  feel 
He  nursed  the  pinion  which  impelled  the  steel; 
While  the  same  plumage  that  had  warmed  his  nest 
Drank  the  last  life-drop  of  his  bleeding  breast." 


MORAL  FORCE  AGAINST  PHYSICAL.  —  D.  Webster. 

The  time  has  been,  indeed,  when  fleets,  and  armies,  and  subsi- 
dies, were  the  principal  reliances,  even  in  the  best  cause.  But, 
happily  for  mankind,  there  has  come  a  great  change  in  this  respect. 
Moral  causes  come  into  consideration,  in  proportion  as  the  progress 
of  knowledge  is  advanced ;  and  the  public  opinion  of  the  civilized 
world  is  rapidly  gaining  an  ascendency  over  mere  brutal  force.  It 
is  already  able  to  oppose  the  most  formidable  obstruction  to  the 
progress  of  injustice  and  oppression ;  and,  as  it  grows  more  intelli- 
gent, and  more  intense,  it  will  be  more  and  more  formidable.  It 
may^be  silenced  by  military  power,  but  it  cannot  be  conquered.  It 
is  elastic,  irrepressible,  and  invulnerable  to  the  weapons  of  ordinary 
warfare.  It  is  that  impassable,  unextinguishable  enemy  of  mere 
violence  and  arbitrary  rule,  which,  like  Milton's  angels, 

"  Vital  in  every  part, 
Cannot,  but  by  annihilating,  die." 

Until  this  be  propitiated  or  satisfied,  it  is  in  vain  for  power  to  talk 
either  of  triumphs  or  of  repose.  No  matter  what  fields  are  deso- 
lated, what  fortresses  surrendered,  what  armies  subdued,  or  what 
provinces  overrun.  In  the  history  of  the  year  that  has  passed  by 
24* 


282 


SPECIMENS  OF 


us,  and  in  the  instance  of  unhappy  Spain,  we  have  seen  the  vanity 
of  all  triumphs,  in  a  cause  which  violates  the  general  sense  of 
justice  of  the  civilized  world.  It  is  nothing  that  the  troops  ot 
France  have  passed  from  the  Pyrenees  to  Cadiz ;  it  is  nothing  that 
an  unhappy  and  prostrate  nation  has  fallen  before  them ;  it  is 
nothing  that  arrests,  and  confiscation,  and  execution,  sweep  away 
the  little  remnant  of  national  existence.  There  is  an  enemy  that 
still  exists,  to  check  the  glory  of  these  triumphs.  It  follows  the 
conqueror  back  to  the  very  scene  of  his  ovations ;  it  calls  upon  him 
to  take  notice  that  Europe,  though  silent,  is  yet  indignant ;  it 
shows  him  that  the  sceptre  of  his  victory  is  a  barren  sceptre,  — 
that  it  shall  confer  neither  joy  nor  honor,  but  shall  moulder  to  dry 
ashes  in  his  grasp.  In  the  midst  of  his  exultation,  it  pierces  his 
ear  with  the  cry  of  injured  justice ;  it  denounces  against  him  the 
indignation  of  an  enlightened  and  civilized  age  ;  it  turns  to  bitter- 
ness the  cup  of  his  rejoicing,  and  wounds  him  with  the  sting  which 
belongs  to  the  consciousness  of  having  outraged  the  opinions  of 
mankind. 


PROGRESS  OF  THE  CAUCASIAN  RACE.  —  T.  H.  Benton. 

It  would  seem  that  the  white  race  alone  received  the  divine 
command  to  subdue  and  replenish  the  earth ;  for  it  is  the  only  race 
that  has  obeyed  it  —  the  only  one  that  hunts  out  new  and  distant 
lands,  and  even  a  new  world,  to  subdue  and  replenish.  Starting 
from  western  Asia,  taking  Europe  for  their  field  and  the  sun  for 
their  guide,  and  leaving  the  Mongolians  behind,  they  arrived,  after 
many  ages,  on  the  shores  of  the  Atlantic,  which  they  lit  up  with 
the  lights  of  science  and  religion,  and  adorned  with  the  useful  and 
the  elegant  arts.  Three  and  a  half  centuries  ago,  this  race,  in 
obedience  to  the  great  command,  arrived  in  the  New  World,  and 
found  new  lands  to  subdue  and  replenish.  For  a  long  time  it  was 
confined  to  the  border  of  the  new  field  (I  now  mean  the  Celtic 
Anglo-Saxon  division) ;  and  even  fourscore  years  ago  the  philo- 
sophic Burke  was  considered  a  rash  man  because  he  said  the  Eng- 
lish colonists  would  top  the  Alleghanies,  and  descend  into  the  valley 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


283 


of  the  Mississippi,  and  occupy  without  parchment,  if  the  crown 
refused  to  make  grants  of  land.  What  was  considered  a  rash 
declaration  eighty  years  ago  is  old  history,  in  our  young  country, 
it  this  day. 

I  cannot  repine  that  this  capitol  has  replaced  the  wigwam,  this 
Christian  people  replaced  the  savages,  white  matrons  the  red 
squaws,  and  that  such  men  as  Washington,  Franklin  and  Jefferson, 
iave  taken  the  place  of  Powhattan,  Opechonecanough  and  other 
*ed  men,  however  respectable  they  may  have  been  as  savages.  Civ- 
lization  or  extinction  has  been  the  fate  of  all  people  who  have 
bund  themselves  in  the  track  of  the  advancing  whites,  and  civiliz- 
ition,  always  the  preference  of  the  whites,  has  been  pressed  as  an 
>bject,  while  extinction  has  followed  as  a  consequence  of  its  resist- 
ince.  The  black  and  the  red  races  have  often  felt  their  amelio- 
ating  influence.  The  yellow  race,  next  to  themselves  in  the  scale 
•f  mental  and  moral  excellence,  and  in  the  beauty  of  form,  once 
heir  superiors  in  the  useful  and  elegant  arts  and  in  learning,  and 
till  respectable,  though  stationary,  —  this  race  cannot  fail  to 
eceive  a  new  impulse  from  the  approach  of  the  whites,  improved 

0  much  since  so  many  ages  ago  they  left  the  western  borders  of 
^sia.  The  apparition  of  the  van  of  the  Caucasian  race,  rising 
pon  them  in  the  east  after  having  left  them  on  the  west,  and  after 
aving  completed  the  circumnavigation  of  the  globe,  must  wake  up 
nd  animate  the  torpid  body  of  old  Asia.  Our  position  and  policy 
/ill  commend  us  to  their  hospitable  reception ;  political  considera- 
ons  will  aid  the  action  of  social  and  commercial  influences. 
Vessed  upon  by  the  great  powers  of  Europe,  —  the  same  that 
ress  upon  us,  —  they  must  in  our  approach  see  the  advent  of 
fiends,  not  of  foes ;  of  benefactors,  not  of  invaders.  The  moral 
nd  intellectual  superiority  of  the  white  race  will  do  the  rest;  and 
ius  the  youngest  people  and  the  newest  land  will  become  the 
aviver  and  the  regenerator  of  the  oldest.  It  is  in  this  point  of 
iew,  and  as  acting  upon  the  social,  political  and  religious  condition 
f  Asia,  and  giving  a  new  point  of  departure  to  her  ancient  civiliz- 
tion,  that  I  look  upon  the  settlement  of  the  Columbia  river  by 
be  van  of  the  Caucasian  race  as  the  most  momentous  human  event 

1  the  history  of  man  since  his  dispersion  over  the  face  of  the  earth* 


284  SPECIMENS  OF 

THE  REIGN  OF  PEACE.  —  C.  Sumner. 

That  future  which  filled  the  lofty  visions  of  the  sages  and  bards 
of  Greece  and  Rome,  which  was  foretold  by  the  prophets  and  her- 
alded by  the  evangelists,  when  man,  in  Happy  Isles,  or  in  a  now 
paradise,  shall  confess  the  loveliness  of  peace,  may  be  secured  bv 
your  care,  if  not  for  yourselves,  at  least  for  your  children.  Believe 
that  you  can  do  it,  and  you  can  do  it.  The  true  golden  age  is 
before  you,  not  behind  you.  If  man  has  been  driven  once  from 
paradise,  while  an  angel,  with  a  flaming  sword,  forbade  his  return 
there  is  another  paradise,  even  on  earth,  which  he  may  form  fci 
himself,  by  the  cultivation  of  knowledge,  religion,  and  the  kinulj 
virtues  of  life ;  where  the  confusion  of  tongues  shall  be  dissolva 
in  the  union  of  hearts,  and  joyous  nature,  borrowing  prolific  charms 
from  the  prevailing  harmony,  shall  spread  her  lap  with  unimaginet 
bounty,  and  there  shall  be  a  perpetual  jocund  spring,  and  sweet 
strains  borne  on  "  the  odoriferous  wing  of  gentle  gales,"  througl 
valleys  of  delight,  more  pleasant  than  the  Vale  of  Tempe,  richei 
than  the  garden  of  the  Hesperides,  with  no  dragon  to  guard  it: 
golden  fruit. 

Let  it  not  be  said  that  the  age  does  not  demand  this  work 
The  robber  conquerors  of  the  past,  from  their  fiery  sepulchres 
demand  it;  the  precious  blood  of  millions  unjustly  shed  in  war 
crying  from  the  ground,  demands  it ;  the  voices  of  all  good  niei 
demand  it;  the  conscience,  even  of  the  soldier,  whispers  "  Peace; 
There  are  considerations,  sprinofincr  from  our  situation  and  condi 
tion,  which  fervently  invite  us  to  take  the  lead  in  this  work 
Here  should  bend  the  patriotic  ardor  of  the  land,  the  ambition  of 
the  statesman,  the  efforts  of  the  scholar,  the  persuasive  influence  of 
the  press,  the  mild  persuasion  of  the  sanctuary,  the  early  teaching 
of  the  school.  Here,  in  ampler  ether  and  diviner  air,  are  untriei 
fields  for  exalted  triumphs,  more  truly  worthy  the  American  nam 
than  any  snatched  from  rivers  of  blood.  War  is  known  as  the  la£ 
reason  of  kings.  Let  it  be  no  reason  of  our  republic.  Let  u 
renounce,  and  throw  off  forever,  the  yoke  of  a  tyranny  more  op 
pressive  than  any  in  the  annals  of  the  world.    As  those  sfcmdiu 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


285 


an  the  mountain-tops  first  discern  the  coming  beams  >f  morning, 
let  us,  from  the  vantage-ground  of  liberal  institutions,  first  recog- 
nize the  ascending  sun  of  a  new  era  !  Lift  high  the  gates,  and  let 
the  King  of  glory  in ;  the  king  of  true  glory  —  of  peace ! 

It  is  a  beautiful  picture  in  Grecian  story,  that  there  was  at  least 
one  spot,  the  small  island  of  Delos,  dedicated  to  the  gods,  and  kept 
at  all  times  sacred  from  war.  No  hostile  foot  ever  sought  to  press 
this  kindly  soil ;  and  the  citizens  of  all  countries  here  met,  in  com- 
mon worship,  beneath  the  aegis  of  inviolable  peace.  So  let  us  ded- 
icate our  beloved  country  ;  and  may  the  blessed  consecration  be 
felt,  in  all  its  parts,  everywhere  throughout  its  ample  domain  ! 
The  Temple  of  Honor  shall  be  surrounded,  here,  at  last,  by  the 
Temple  of  Concord,  that  it  may  never* more  be  entered  through 
iny  portal  of  war;  the  horn  of  abundance  shall  overflow  at  its 
2;ates ;  the  angel  of  religion  shall  be  the  guide  over  its  steps  of 
lashing  adamant ;  while  within  its  enraptured  courts,  purged  of 
Tiolence  and  wrong,  Justice,  returned  to  the  earth  from  her  long 
:xile  in  the  skies,  with  mighty  scales  for  nations  as  well  as  for 
jnen,  shall  rear  her  serene  and  majestic  front ;  and  by  her  side, 
greatest  of  all,  Charity,  sublime  in  meekness,  hoping  all  and  endur- 
ng  all,  shall  divinely  temper  every  righteous  decree,  and  with 
voids  of  infinite  cheer  shall  inspire  those  good  works  that  cannot 
auish  away.  And  the  future  chiefs  of  the  republic,  destined  to 
phold  the  glories  of  a  new  era,  unspotted  by  human  blood,  shall 
e  "the  first  in  peace,  and  the  first  in  the  hearts  of  their  country- 
len." 

But,  while  seeking  these  blissful  glories  for  ourselves,  let  us  strive 
)  tender  them  to  other  lands.  Let  the  bugles  sound  the  truce 
f  God  to  the  whole  world  forever.  Let  the  selfish  boast  of  the 
partan  women  become  the  grand  chorus  of  mankind,  —  that  they 
ive  never  seen  the  smoke  of  an  enemy's  camp.  Let  the  iron  belt 
?  martial  music  which  now  encompasses  the  earth  be  exchanged 
r  the  golden  cestus  of  peace,  clothing  all  with  celestial  beauty, 
istory  dwells  with  fondness  on  the  reverent  homage  that  was 
istowed,  by  massacring  soldiers,  upon  the  spot  occupied  by  the 
palchre  of  the  Lord.    Vain  man  !  to  restrain  his  regard  to  a  few 


2<- 


SPECIMENS  OF 


>et  of  sr-  Jtnould !  The  whole  earth  is  the  sepulchre  of  the 
Lord  ;  r  can  any  righteous  man  profane  any  part  thereof.  Let 
us  recojnke  this  truth,  and  now,  on  this  Sabbath  of  our  country, 
lay  a  new  stone  in  the  grand  temple  of  universal  peace,  whose 
dome  shall  be  as  lofty  as  the  firmament  of  heaven,  as  broad  and 
comprehensive  as  the  earth  itself ! 


AGAINST  FLOGGING  IN  THE  NAVY.  —  R.  F.  Stockton. 

There  is  one  broad  proposition  upon  which  I  stand.  It  is  this : 
That  an  American  sailor  is  an  American  citizen,  and  that  no  Amer- 
ican citizen  shall,  with  my  consent,  be  subjected  to  the  infamous 
punishment  of  the  lash.  If,  when  a  citizen  enters  into  the  service 
of  his  country,  he  is  to  forego  the  protection  of  those  laws  for  th( 
preservation  of  which  he  is  willing  to  risk  his  life,  he  is  entitled,  ii 
all  justice,  humanity  and  gratitude,  to  all  the  protection  that  cai 
be  extended  to  him,  in  his  peculiar  circumstances.  He  ought,  cer 
tainly,  to  be  protected  from  the  infliction  of  a  punishment  whicl 
stands  condemned  by  the  almost  universal  sentiment  of  his  fellow 
citizens ;  a  punishment  which  is  proscribed  in  the  best  prison-gov 
ernment,  proscribed  in  the  school-house,  and  proscribed  in  the  bed 
government  on  earth  —  that  of  parental  domestic  affection.  Yes 
sir,  expelled  from  the  social  circle,  from  the  school-house,  th 
prison-house,  and  the  army,  it  finds  defenders  and  champion 
nowhere  but  in  the  navy ! 

Look  to  your  history, — that  part  of  it  which  the  world  know 
by  heart,  —  and  you  will  find  on  its  brightest  page  the  gloriou 
achievements  of  the  American  sailor.  Whatever  his  country  ho 
done  to  disgrace  him,  and  break  his  spirit,  he  has  never  disgrace 
her  ;  he  has  always  been  ready  to  serve  her ;  he  always  has  serve 
her  faithfully  and  effectually.  He  has  often  been  weighed  in  th 
balance,  and  never  found  wanting.  The  only  fault  ever  foun 
with  him  is,  that  he  sometimes  fights  ahead  of  his  orders.  Tl 
world  has  no  match  for  him,  man  for  man  ;  and  he  asks  no  odd 
and  he  cares  for  no  odds,  when  the  cause  of  humanity,  or  the  gloi 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


287 


of  his  country,  calls  him  to  fight.  Who,  in  the  darkest  days  of 
our  Revolution,  carried  your  flag  into  the  very  chops  of  the  Brit- 
ish Channel,  bearded  the  lion  in  his  den,  and  woke  the  echoes  of 
old  Albion's  hills  by  the  thunders  of  his  cannon,  and  the  shouts  of 
his  triumph  ?  It  was  the  American  sailor.  And  the  names  of 
John  Paul  Jones  and  the  Bon  Homme  Richard  will  go  down  the 
annals  of  time  forever.  Who  struck  the  first  blow  that  humbled 
the  Barbary  flag,  —  which,  for  a  hundred  years,  had  been  the 
terror  of  Christendom,  —  drove  it  from  the  Mediterranean,  and 
put  an  end  to  the  infamous  tribute  it  had  been  accustomed  to 
extort  ?  It  was  the  American  sailor.  And  the  name  of  Decatur 
and  his  gallant  companions  will  be  as  lasting  as  monumental  brass, 
tn  your  war  of  1812,  when  your  arms  on  shore  were  covered  by 
disasters,  —  when  Winchester  had  been  defeated,  when  the  army 
ol  the  north-west  had  surrendered,  and  when  the  gloom  of  despond- 
ency hung  like  a  cloud  over  the  land,  —  who  first  relit  the  fires  of 
national  glory,  and  made  the  welkin  ring  with  the  shouts  of  vic- 
tory ?  It  was  the  American  sailor.  And  the  names  of  Hull  and 
the  Constitution  will  be  remembered,  as  long  as  we  have  left  any- 
thing worth  remembering.  That  was  no  small  event.  The  wand 
of  Mexican  prowess  was  broken  on  the  Bio  Grande.  The  wand  of 
British  invincibility  was  broken  when  the  flag  of  the  Guerriere 
came  down.  That  one  event  was  worth  more  to  the  republic  than 
all  the  money  which  has  ever  been  expended  for  the  navy.  Since 
that  day,  the  navy  has  had  no  stain  upon  its  escutcheon,  but  has 
been  cherished  as  your  pride  and  glory.  And  the  American  sailor 
has  established  a  reputation  throughout  the  world,  —  in  peace  and 
in  war,  in  storm  and  in  battle,  —  for  heroism  and  prowess  unsur- 
passed. He  shrinks  from  no  danger,  he  dreads  no  foe,  and  yields 
to  no  superior.  No  shoals  are  too  dangerous,  no  seas  too  boisterous, 
no  climate  too  rigorous,  for  him.  The  burning  sun  of  the  tropics 
cannot  make  him  effeminate,  nor  can  the  eternal  winter  of  the 
polar  seas  paralyze  his  energies.  Foster,  cherish,  develop  these 
characteristics,  by  a  generous  and  paternal  government.  Excite 
his  emulation,  and  stimulate  his  ambition,  by  rewards.  But, 
above  all,  save  hira,  save  him  from  the  brutalizing  lash,  and  inspire 


I 


288  SPECIMENS  OP 


him  with  love  and  confidence  for  your  service !  and  then  there  is 
no  achievement  so  arduous,  no  conflict  so  desperate,  in  which  his 
actions  will  not  shed  glory  upon  his  country.  And,  when  the 
final  struggle  comes,  as  soon  it  will  come,  for  the  empire  of  the 
seas,  you  may  rest  with  entire  confidence  in  the  persuasion  that 
victory  will  be  yours. 


THE  PURITAN.  —  E.  P.  Whipple. 

There  is  a  charm  in  that  word  which  will  never  be  lost  on  a 
New  England  ear.  It  is  closely  associated  with  all  that  is  groat 
in  New  England  history.  It  is  hallowed  by  a  thousand  memories 
of  obstacles  overthrown,  of  dangers  nobly  braved,  of  sufferings 
unshrinkingly  borne,  in  the  service  of  freedom  and  religion.  It 
kindles  at  once  the  pride  of  ancestry,  and  inspires  the  deepest  feel- 
ings of  national  veneration.  It  points  to  examples  of  valor  in  all 
its  modes  of  manifestation,  —  in  the  hall  of  debate,  on  the  field  of 
battle,  before  the  tribunal  of  power,  at  the  martyr's  stake.  It  is  a 
name  which  will  never  die  out  of  New  England  hearts.  Wherever 
virtue  resists  temptation,  wherever  men  meet  death  for  religion's 
sake,  wherever  the  gilded  baseness  of  the  world  stands  abashed 
before  conscientious  principle,  there  will  be  the  spirit  of  the  Puri- 
tans. They  have  left  deep  and  broad  marks  of  their  influence  on 
human  society.  Their  children,  in  all  times,  will  rise  up  and  call 
them  blessed.  A  thousand  witnesses  of  their  courage,  their  indus- 
try, their  sagacity,  their  invincible  perseverance  in  well-doing, 
their  love  of  free  institutions,  their  respect  for  justice,  their  hatred 
of  wrong,  are  all  around  us,  and  bear  grateful  evidence  daily  to 
their  memory.  We  cannot  forget  them,  even  if  we  had  sufficient 
baseness  to  wish  it.  Every  spot  of  New  England  earth  has  a  story 
to  tell  of  them ;  every  cherished  institution  of  New  England  soci- 
ety bears  the  print  of  their  minds.  The  strongest  element  of  New 
England  character  has  been  transmitted  with  their  blood.  Sc 
intense  is  our  sense  of  affiliation  with  their  nature,  that  we  speak 
of  them  universally  as  our  "  fathers."    And  though  their  faov 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


289 


everywhere  else  were  weighed  down  with  calumny  and  hatred,  — 
though  the  principles  for  which  they  contended,  and  the  noble 
deeds  they  performed,  should  become  the  scoff  of  sycophants  and 
oppressors,  and  be  blackened  by  the  smooth  falsehoods  of  the  sel- 
fish and  the  cold,  —  there  never  will  be  wanting  hearts  in  New 
England  to  kindle  at  their  virtues,  nor  tongues  and  pens  to  vindi- 
cate their  name. 


FOR  PROSECUTING  THE  WAR,  1813.  —  H.  Clay. 

When  the  administration  was  striving,  by  the  operation  of 
^peaceful  measures,  to  bring  Great  Britain  back  to  a  sense  of  justice, 
the  gentlemen  of  the  opposition  were  for  old-fashioned  war.  And, 
now  they  have  got  old-fashioned  war,  their  sensibilities  are  cruelly 
shocked,  and  all  their  sympathies  lavished  upon  the  harmless  inhab- 
itants of  the  adjoining  provinces.  What  does  a  state  of  war  pre- 
sent ?  The  united  energies  of  one  people  arrayed  against  the  com- 
bined energies  of  another ;  a  conflict  in  which  each  party  aims  to 
inflict  all  the  injury  it  can,  by  sea  and  land,  upon  the  territories, 
property,  and  citizens  of  the  other,  —  subject  only  to  the  rules  of 
mitigated  war,  practised  by  civilized  nations.  The  gentlemen 
would  not  touch  the  continental  provinces  of  the  enemy;  nor,  I 
presume,  for  the  same  reason,  her  possessions  in  the  West  Indies. 
The  same  humane  spirit  would  spare  the  seamen  and  soldiers  of  the 
enemy.  The  sacred  person  of  his  majesty  must  not  be  attacked, 
for  the  learned  gentlemen  on  the  other  side  are  quite  familiar  with 
the  maxim  that  the  king  can  do  no  wrong.  Indeed,  I  know  of  no 
person  on  whom  we  may  make  war,  upon  the  principles  of  the 
honorable  gentlemen,  but  Mr.  Stephen,  the  celebrated  author  of 
the  orders  in  council,  or  the  board  of  admiralty,  who  authorize  and 
regulate  the  practice  of  impressment ! 

The  disasters  of  the  war  admonish  us,  we  are  told,  of  the  neces- 
sity of  terminating  the  contest.  If  our  achievements  by  land  have 
been  less  splendid  than  those  of  our  intrepid  seamen  by  water,  it 
is  not  because  the  American  soldier  is  less  brave.  On  the  one 
element,  organization,  discipline,  and  a  thorough  knowledge  of 
25 


290 


SPECIMENS  OF 


their  duties,  exist,  on  the  part  of  the  officers  and  their  men.  On 
the  other,  almost  everything  is  yet  to  be  acquired.  We  have, 
however,  the  consolation  that  our  country  abounds  with  the  richest 
materials,  and  that  in  no  instance,  when  engaged  in  action,  have 
our  arms  been  tarnished. 

An  honorable  peace  is  attainable  only  by  an  efficient  war.  My 
plan  would  be,  to  call  out  the  ample  resources  of  the  country,  give 
them  a  judicious  direction,  prosecute  the  war  with  the  utmost 
vigor,  strike  wherever  we  can  reach  the  enemy,  at  sea  or  on  land, 
and  negotiate  the  terms  of  a  peace  at  Quebec  or  at  Halifax.  We 
are  told  that  England  is  a  proud  and  lofty  nation,  which,  disdain- 
ing to  wait  for  danger,  meets  it  half  way.  Haughty  as  she  is,  vi^ 
once  triumphed  over  her ;  and,  if  we  do  not  listen  to  the  counsels 
of  timidity  and  despair,  we  shall  again  prevail.  In  such  a  cause, 
with  the  aid  of  Providence,  we  must  come  out  crowned  with  suc- 
cess ;  but,  if  we  fail,  let  us  fail  like  men,  —  lash  ourselves  to  our 
gallant  tars,  and  expire  together  in  one  common  struggle,  fighting 

for  FREE  TRADE  AND  SEAMEX'S  RIGHTS  ! 


FOR  INDEPENDENCE,  1776.  — ie.  H.  Lee. 

The  time  will  certainly  come  when  the  fated  separation  between 
the  mother  country  and  these  colonies  must  take  place,  whether 
you  will  or  no ;  for  so  it  is  decreed  by  the  very  nature  of  things, 
—  by  the  progressive  increase  of  our  population,  the  fertility  of 
our  soil,  the  extent  of  our  territory,  the  industry  of  our  country- 
men, and  the  immensity  of  the  ocean  which  separates  the  two 
countries.  And,  if  this  be  true,  —  as  it  is  most  true,  —  who  does 
not  see  that  the  sooner  it  takes  place,  the  better ;  that  it  would  be 
the  height  of  folly,  not  to  seize  the  present  occasion,  when  British 
injustice  has  filled  all  hearts  with  indignation,  inspired  all  mind.- 
with  courage,  united  all  opinions  in  one,  and  put  arms  in  even 
hand?  And  how  long  must  we  traverse  three  thousand  miles  of; 
stormy  sea,  to  solicit  of  arrogant  and  insolent  men  either  counsel 
or  commands  to  regulate  our  domestic  affairs  ?    From  what  w 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


291 


have  already  achieved,  it  is  easy  to  presume  what  we  shall  here- 
after accomplish.  Experience  is  the  source  of  sage  counsels,  and 
liberty  is  the  mother  of  great  men.  Have  you  not  seen  the  enemy 
driven  from  Lexington  by  citizens  armed  and  assembled  in  one 
day?  Already  their  most  celebrated  generals  have  yielded  in 
Boston  to  the  skill  of  ours.  Already  their  seamen,  repulsed  from 
our  coasts,  wander  over  the  ocean,  the  sport  of  tempests,  and  the 
prey  of  famine.  Let  us  hail  the  favorable  omen,  and  fight,  not 
for  the  sake  of  knowing  on  what  terms  we  are  to  be  the  slaves  of 
Endand,  but  to  secure  to  ourselves  a  free  existence,  to  found  a 
just  and  independent  government. 

Why  do  we  longer  delay,  —  why  still  deliberate?  Let  this 
most  happy  day  give  birth  to  the  American  republic.  Let  her 
arise,  not  to  devastate  and  conquer,  but  to  reestablish  the  reign  of 
peace  and  of  the  laws.  The  eyes  of  Europe  are  fixed  upon  us ;  she 
demands  of  us  a  living  example  of  freedom,  that  may  contrast,  by 
the  felicity  of  the  citizens,  with  the  ever-increasing  tyranny  which 
desolates  her  polluted  shores.  She  invites  us  to  prepare  an  asylum 
where  the  unhappy  may  find  solace,  and  the  persecuted  repose. 
She  entreats  us  to  cultivate  a  propitious  soil,  where  that  gen- 
erous plant  which  first  sprang  up  and  grew  in  England,  but  is 
now  withered  by  the  poisonous  blasts  of  Scottish  tyranny,  may 
revive  and  flourish,  sheltering  under  its  salubrious  and  interminable 
shade  all  the  unfortunate  of  the  human  race.  This  is  the  end 
presaged  by  so  many  omens :  —  by  our  first  victories ;  by  the  pres- 
ent ardor  and  union ;  by  the  flight  of  Howe;  and  the  pestilence 
which  broke  out  among  Dunniore's  people ;  by  the  very  winds 
which  baffled  the  enemy's  fleets  and  transports,  and  that  terrible 
tempest  which  engulfed  seven  hundred  vessels  upon  the  coast  of 
Newfoundland.  -  If  we  are  not  this  day  wanting  in  our  duty  to  our 
country,  the  names  of  the  American  legislators  will  be  placed,  by 
posterity,  at  the  side  of  those  of  Theseus,  of  Lycurgus,  of -Romulus, 
of  Nuraa,  of  the  three  Williams  of  Xassau,  and  of  all  those  whose 
memory  has  been,  and  will  be,  forever  dear  to  virtuous  men  and 
good  citizens ! 


292 


SPECIMENS  OF 


THE  AMERICAN  GOVERNMENT.  —  M.  Van  Buren. 

In  all  the  attributes  of  a  great,  happy  and  flourishing  people, 
we  stand  without  a  parallel  in  the  world.  Abroad,  we  enjoy  the 
respect,  and,  with  scarcely  an  exception,  the  friendship  of  every 
nation ;  at  home,  while  our  government  quietly,  but  efficiently, 
performs  the  sole  legitimate  end  of  political  institutions,  in  doing 
the  greatest  good  to  the  greatest  number,  we  present  an  aggregate 
of  human  prosperity  surely  not  elsewhere  to  be  found. 

How  imperious,  then,  is  the  obligation  imposed  upon  every  citi- 
zen, in  his  own  sphere  of  action,  whether  limited  or  extended,  to 
exert  himself  in  perpetuating  a  condition  of  things  so  singularly 
happy  !  All  the  lessons  of  history  and  experience  must  be  lost 
upon  us,  if  we  are  content  to  trust  alone  to  the  peculiar  advantages 
we  happen  to  possess.  Position  and  climate,  and  the  bounteous 
resources  that  nature  has  scattered  with  so  liberal  a  hand,  —  even 
the  diffused  intelligence  and  elevated  character  of  our  people,  — 
will  avail  us  nothing,  if  we  fail  sacredly  to  uphold  those  political 
institutions  that  were  wisely  and  deliberately  formed  with  refer- 
ence to  every  circumstance  that  could  preserve,  or  might  endanger, 
the  blessings  we  enjoy.  The  thoughtful  framers  of  our  constitu- 
tion legislated  for  our  country  as  they  found  it.  Looking  upon  it 
with  the  eyes  of  statesmen  and  of  patriots,  they  saw  all  the  sources 
of  rapid  and  wonderful  prosperity ;  but  they  saw,  also,  that  various 
habits,  opinions  and  institutions,  peculiar  to  the  various  portions  of 
so  vast  a  region,  were  deeply  fixed.  Distinct  sovereignties  were 
in  actual  existence,  whose  cordial  union  was  essential  to  the  welfare 
and  happiness  of  all.  Between  many  of  them  there  was,  at  least 
to  some  extent,  a  real  diversity  of  interests,  liable  to  be  exagger- 
ated through  sinister  designs ;  they  differed  in  size,  in  population, 
in  wealth,  and  in  actual  and  prospective  resources  and  power ;  they 
varied  in  the  character  of  their  industry  and  staple  productions;  and 
in  some  existed  domestic  institutions,  which,  unwisely  disturbed, 
might  endanger  the  harmony  of  the  whole.  Most  carefully  weae 
all  these  circumstances  weighed,  and  the  foundations  of  the  new 
government  laid  upon  principles  of  reciprocal  concession  and  equi- 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


293 


table  compromise.  The  jealousies  which  the  smaller  states  might 
entertain  of  the  power  of  the  rest  were  allayed  by  a  rule  of  repre*- 
sentation  confessedly  unequal  at  the  time,  and  designed  forever  to 
remain  so.  A  natural  fear  that  the  broad  scope  of  general  legis- 
lation might  bear  upon  and  unwisely  control  particular  interests, 
was  counteracted  by  limits  strictly  drawn  around  the  action  of  the 
federal  authority ;  and  to  the  people  and  the  states  was  left  unim- 
paired their  sovereign  power  over  the  innumerable  subjects  em- 
braced in  the  internal  government  of  a  just  republic,  excepting  such 
only  as  necessarily  appertain  to  the  concerns  of  the  whole  confed- 
eracy, or  its  intercourse,  as  a  united  community,  with  the  other 
nations  of  the  world. 


FROM  AN  ADDRESS  AT  BLOODY  BROOK.  —  E.  Everett. 

Gathered  in  this  temple  not  made  with  hands,  to  unroll  the 
venerable  record  of  our  fathers'  history,  let  our  first  thoughts 
ascend  to  Him  whose  heavens  are  spread  out  as  a  glorious  canopy 
above  our  heads !  As  our  eyes  look  up  to  the  everlasting  hills 
which  rise  before  us,  let  us  remember  that  in  the  dark  and  event- 
ful days  we  commemorate  the  hand  that  lifted  their  eternal  pillars 
to  the  clouds  was  the  sole  stay  and  support  of  our  afflicted  sires. 
While  we  contemplate  the  lovely  scene  around  us,  —  once  covered 
with  the  gloomy  forest  and  the  tangled  swamps,  through  which  the 
victims  of  this  day  pursued  their  unsuspecting  path  to  the  field  of 
slaughter,  —  let  us  bow  in  gratitude  to  Him  beneath  whose  pater- 
nal care  a  little  one  has  become  a  thousand,  and  a  small  one  a 
strong  nation.  Assembled  under  the  shadow  of  this  venerable 
tree,  let  us  bear  in  thankful  recollection  that  at  the  period  when  its 
sturdy  limbs  which  now  spread  over  us,  hung  with  nature's  rich 
and  verdant  tapestry,  were  all  folded  up  within  the  narrow  com- 
pass of  their  seminal  germ,  the  thousand  settlements  of  our 
beloved  country,  teeming  with  the  life,  energy  and  power  of  pros- 
perous millions,  were  struggling  with  unimagined  hardships  for  a 
doubtful  existence,  in  a  score  of  feeble  plantations  scattered  through 
25* 


294 


SPECIMENS  OF 


the  hostile  wilderness.  Alas  !  it  was  not  alone  the  genial  showers, 
and  the  gentle  dews,  and  the  native  richness  of  the  soil,  which 
nourished  the  growth  of  this  stately  tree.  The  sod  from  which  it 
sprung  was  moistened  with  the  blood  of  brave  men  who  fell  for 
their  country,  and  the  ashes  of  peaceful  dwellings  are  mingled  with 
the  consecrated  earth.  In  like  manner r  it  is  not  alone  the  wisdom 
and  the  courage,  the  piety  and  the  virtue,  of  our  fathers,  —  not 
alone  the  prudence  with  which  they  laid  the  foundations  of  the 
state,  to  which  we  are  indebted  for  its  happy  growth  and  all-per- 
vading prosperity.  No,  we  ought  never  to  forget,  —  we  ought  this 
day  especially  to  remember,  —  that  it  was  in  their  sacrifices  and 
trials,  their  heart-rending  sorrows,  their  ever-renewed  tribulations, 
their  wanderings,  their  conflicts,  their  wants  and  their  woes,  that 
the  corner-stone  of  our  privileges  and  blessings  was  laid. 

As  I  stand  on  this  hallowed  spot,  my  mind  filled  with  the  tra- 
ditions of  that  disastrous  day,  surrounded  by  these  enduring  natu-' 
ral  memorials,  impressed  with  the  touching  ceremonies  we  have 
just  witnessed,  the  affecting  incidents  of  the  bloody  scene  crowd 
upon  my  imagination.  This  compact  and  prosperous  village  disap- 
pears, and  a  few  scattered  log-cabins  are  seen,  in  the  bosom  of  the 
primeval  forest,  clustering  for  protection  around  the  rude  block- 
house in  the  centre.  A  corn-field  or  two  has  been  rescued  from 
the  all-surrounding  wilderness,  and  here  and  there  the  yellow 
husks  are  heard  to  rustle  in  the  breeze,  that  comes  loaded  with  the 
mournful  sighs  of  the  melancholy  pine-woods.  Beyond,  the  inter- 
minable forest  spreads  in  every  direction,  the  covert  of  the  wolf, 
of  the  rattle-snake,  of  the  savage ;  and  between  its  gloomy  copses 
what  is  now  a  fertile  and  cultivated  meadow  stretches  out  a  dreary 
expanse  of  unreclaimed  morass.  I  look,  —  I  listen.  All  is  still, — 
solemnly,  frightfully  still.  No  voice  of  human  activity  or  enjoy- 
ment breaks  the  dreary  silence  of  nature,  or  mingles  with  the  dirge 
of  the  woods  and  water-courses.  All  seems  peaceful  and  still ;  — 
and  yet  there  is  a  strange  heaviness  in  the  fall  of  the  leaves  in  the 
wood  that  skirts  the  road ;  there  is  an  unnatural  flitting  in  tho>o 
shadows ;  there  is  a  plashing  sound  in  the  waters  of  that  brook, 
which  makes  the  flesh  creep  with  horror.    Hark !  it  is  the  click  of 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


295 


a  gun-lock  from  that  thicket ;  —  no,  it  is  a  pebble,  that  has  dropped 
from  the  over-hanging  cliff,  upon  the  rock  beneath.  It  is,  it  is  the 
gleaming  blade  of  a  scalping-knife ;  —  no,  it  is  a  sunbeam  thrown 
off  from  that  dancing  ripple.  It  is,  it  is  the  red  feather  of  a  sav- 
age chief,  peeping  from  behind  that  maple  tree ;  —  no,  it  is  a  leaf, 
which  September  has  touched  with  her  many-tinted  pencil.  And 
now  a  distant  drum  is  heard ;  yes,  that  is  a  sound  of  life,  —  con- 
scious, proud  life.  A  single  fife  breaks  upon  the  ear,  —  a  stirring 
strain.  It  is  one  of  the  marches  to  which  the  stern  warriors  of 
Cromwell  moved  over  the  field  at  Naseby  and  Worcester.  There 
are  no  loyal  ears  to  take  offence  at  a  puritanical  march  in  a  trans- 
Atlantic  forest ;  and  hard  by,  at  Hadley,  there  is  a  gray-haired 
fugitive,  who  followed  the  cheering  strain  at  the  head  of  his  division 
in  the  army  of  the  great  usurper.  The  warlike  note  grows  louder  ! 
I  hear  the  tread  of  armed  men !  —  but  I  run  before  my  story. 


EXTENT  OF  COUNTRY  NO  BAR  TO  UNION.  —  E.  Randolph. 

Extent  of  country,  in  my  conception,  ought  to  be  no  bar  to  the 
adoption  of  a  good  government.  No  extent  on  earth  seems  to  me 
too  great,  provided  the  laws  be  wisely  made  and  executed.  The 
principles  of  representation  and  responsibility  may  pervade  a  large 
as  well  as  a  small  territory ;  and  tyranny  is  as  easily  introduced 
into  a  small  as  into  a  large  district.  Union  is  the  rock  of  our  sal- 
vation. Our  safety,  our  political  happiness,  our  existence,  depend 
on  the  Union  of  these  States.  Without  union,  the  people  of  this 
and  the  other  states  will  undergo  the  unspeakable  calamities  which 
discord,  faction,  turbulence,  war  and  bloodshed,  have  continually 
produced  in  other  countries.  Without  union,  we  throw  away  all 
those  blessings  for  which  we  have  so  earnestly  fought.  Without 
union,  there  is  no  peace  in  the  land. 

The  American  spirit  ought  to  be  mixed  with  American  pride, — 
pride  to  see  the  Union  magnificently  triumph.  Let  that  glorious 
pride  which  once  defied  the  British  thunder  reanimate  you  again. 
Let  it  not  be  recorded  of  Americans,  that,  after  having  per- 


296 


SPECIMENS  OF 


formed  the  most  gallant  exploits,  after  having  overcome  the  most 
astonishing  difficulties,  and  after  having  gained  the  admiration  of 
the  world  by  their  incomparable  valor  and  policy,  they  lost  their 
acquired  reputation,  lost  their  national  consequence  and  happiness, 
by  their  own  indiscretion.  Let  no  future  historian  inform  posterity 
that  Americans  wanted  wisdom  and  virtue  to  concur  in  any  regu- 
lar, efficient  government.  Catch  the  present  moment.  Seize  it 
with  avidity.  It  may  be  lost,  never  to  be  regained ;  and,  if  the 
Union  be  lost  now,  I  fear  it  will  remain  so  forever ! 


AMERICAN  INNOVATIONS.  — J.  Madison. 

Why  is  the  experiment  of  an  extended  republic  to  be  rejected, 
merely  because  it  may  comprise  what  is  new  ?  Is  it  not  the  glory 
of  the  people  of  America,  that  whilst  they  have  paid  a  decent 
regard  to  the  opinions  of  former  times  and  other  nations,  they  have 
not  suffered  a  blind  veneration  for  antiquity,  for  custom,  or  for 
names,  to  overrule  the  suggestions  of  their  own  good  sense,  the 
knowledge  of  their  own  situation,  and  the  lesson  of  their  own  expe- 
rience ?  To  this  manly  spirit  posterity  will  be  indebted  for  t\A 
possession,  and  the  world  for  the  example,  of  the  numerous  innova- 
tions displayed  on  the  American  theatre,  in  favor  of  private  rights 
and  public  happiness.  Had  no  important  step  been  taken  by  the 
leaders  of  the  Revolution,  for  which  a  precedent  could  not  be  dis- 
covered, —  no  government  established,  of  which  an  exact  model 
did  not  present  itself,  —  the  people  of  the  United  States  might,  at 
this  moment,  have  been  numbered  among  the  melancholy  victims 
of  misguided  councils ;  must,  at  best,  have  been  laboring  under  the 
weight  of  some  of  those  forms  which  have  crushed  the  liberties  of 
the  rest  of  mankind.  Happily  for  America,  —  happily,  we  trust, 
for  the  whole  human  race,  —  they  pursued  a  new  and  more  noble 
course.  They  accomplished  a  revolution  which  has  no  parallel  in 
the  annals  of  human  society.  They  reared  the  fabric  of  govern- 
ments which  have  no  model  on  the  face  of  the  globe.  They  formed 
the  design  of  a  great  confederacy,  which  it  is  incumbent  on  their 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCB. 


299 


palace.  Austria  may  now  remember  how  her  power  trampled 
upon  Poland.  Did  she  not  pay  dear,  very  dear,  for  her  California? 
But  has  Prussia  no  atonement  to  make  ?  You  see  this  same  Napo- 
leon, the  blind  instrument  of  Providence,  at  work  there.  The 
thunders  of  his  cannon  at  Jena  proclaim  the  work  of  retribution 
for  Poland's  wrongs  ;  and  the  successors  of  the  Great  Frederick, 
the  drill-sergeant  of  Europe,  are  seen  flying  across  the  sandy  plains 
that  surround  their  capital,  right  glad  if  they  may  escape  cap- 
tivity and  death.  But  how  fares  it  with  the  Autocrat  of  Russia  ? 
Is  he  secure  in  his  share  of  the  spoils  of  Poland  ?  No ;  suddenly 
we  see  six  hundred  thousand  armed  men  marching  to  Moscow. 
Does  his  Vera  Cruz  protect  him  now?  Far  from  it.  Blood, 
slaughter,  desolation,  spread  abroad  over  the  land,  and,  finally,  the 
conflagration  of  the  old  commercial  metropolis  of  Russia  closes  the 
retribution  she  must  pay  for  her  share  in  the  dismemberment  of 
her  weak  and  impotent  neighbor.  A  mind  more  prone  to  look  for 
the  judgments  of  Heaven  in  the  doings  of  men  than  mine  cannot 
fail  in  this  to  see  the  providence  of  God.  When  Moscow  burned, 
it  seemed  as  if  the  earth  was  lighted  up,  that  the  nations  might 
behold  the  scene.  As  that  mighty  sea  of  fire  gathered  and  heaved 
and  rolled  upward,  and  yet  higher,  till  its  flames  licked  the  stars, 
and  fired  the  whole  heavens,  it  did  seem  as  though  the  God  of  the 
nations  was  writing  in  characters  of  flame,  on  the  front  of  his 
throne,  that  doom  that  shall  fall  upon  the  strong  nation  which 
tramples  in  scorn  upon  the  weak.  And  what  fortune  awaits  him, 
the  appointed  executor  of  this  work,  when  it  was  all  done  ?  He, 
too,  conceived  the  idea  that  his  destiny  pointed  onward  to  universal 
dominion.  -  France  was  too  small ;  Europe,  he  thought,  should 
bow  down  before  him.  But  as  soon  as  this  idea  took  possession  of 
his  soul,  he,  too,  became  powerless.  His  Terminus  must  recede, 
too.  Right  there,  while  he  witnessed  the  humiliation,  and,  doubt- 
less, meditated  the  subjugation  of  Russia,  He  who  holds  the  winds 
in  his  fist  gathered  the  snows  of  the  north,  and  blew  them  upon 
his  six  hundred  thousand  men ;  —  they  died,  they  froze,  they  per- 
ished. And  now  the  mighty  Napoleon,  who  had  resolved  on  uni- 
versal dominion,  he,  too,  is  summoned  to  answer  for  the  violation 


300 


SPECIMENS  OF 


of  that  ancient  law,  "  Thou  shalt  not  covet  anything  which  is  thy 
neighbor's."  How  are  the  mighty  fallen !  He,  beneath  whose 
proud  footsteps  Europe  trembled,  he  is  now  an  exile  at  Elba,  and 
now  finally  a  prisoner  on  the  rock  of  St.  Helena,  —  and  there,  on 
a  barren  island,  in  an  unfrequented  sea,  in  the  crater  of  an  extin- 
guished volcano,  there  is  the  death-bed  of  the  mighty  conqueror. 
All  his  annexations  have  come  to  that !  His  last  hour  is  now 
come ;  and  he,  the  man  of  destiny,  he  who  had  rocked  the  world 
as  with  the  throes  of  an  earthquake,  is  now  powerless,  —  still ; 
even  as  the  beggar,  so  he  died.  On  the  wings  of  a  tempest  that 
raged  with  unwonted  fury,  up  to  the  throne  of  the  only  Power 
that  controlled  him  while  he  lived,  went  the  fiery  soul  of  that 
wonderful  warrior,  another  witness  to  that  eternal  decree,  that 
they  who  do  not  rule  in  righteousness  shall  perish  from  the  earth. 
He  has  found  "  room,"  at  last.  And  France,  —  she,  too,  has  found 
"  room."  Her  eagles  now  no  longer  scream  along  the  Danks  of  the 
Danube,  the  Po,  and  the  Borysthenes.  They  have  returned  home 
to  their  old  eyrie,  between  the  Alps,  the  Rhine  and  the  Pyrenees. 
So  shall  it  be  with  yours.  You  may  carry  them  to  the  loftiest 
peaks  of  the  Cordilleras,  they  may  wave  in  insolent  triumph  in 
the  halls  of  the  Montezumas,  the  armed  men  of  Mexico  may  quail 
before  them,  — but  the  weakest  hand  in  Mexico,  uplifted  in  prayer 
to  the  God  of  justice,  may  call  down  against  you  a  Power,  in  the 
presence  of  which  the  iron  hearts  of  your  warriors  shall  be  turned 
into  ashes  ! 


FOR  THE  BRITISH  TREATY.  —  F.  Ames. 

Are  the  posts  of  our  frontier  to  remain  forever  in  the  possession 
of  Great  Britain?  Let  those  who  reject  them,  when  the  treaty 
offers  them  to  our  hands,  say,  if  they  choose,  they  are  of  no  import- 
ance. Will  the  tendency  to  Indian  hostilities  be  contested  by  any 
one  ?  Experience  gives  the  answer.  Am  I  reduced  to  the  neces- 
sity of  proving  this  point  ?  Certainly  the  very  men  who  charged 
the  Indian  war  on  the  detention  of  the  posts  will  call  for  no  other 
proof  than  the  recital  of  their  own  speeches.    "  Until  the  posts 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


297 


successors  to  improve  and  perpetuate.  If  their  works  betray 
imperfections,  we  wonder  at  the  fewness  of  them.  If  they  erred 
most  in  the  structure  of  the  Union,  this  was  the  most  difficult  to 
be  executed ;  this  is  the  work  which  has  been  new-modelled  by 
the  act  of  your  convention,  and  it  is  that  act  on  which  you  are 
now  to  deliberate  and  to  decide. 


DANGERS  OF  THE  SPIRIT  OF  CONQUEST .  —  T.  Corwin. 

This  uneasy  desire  to  augment  our  territory  has  depraved  the 
moral  sense,  and  blighted  the  otherwise  keen  sagacity,  of  our  people. 
What  has  been  the  fate  of  all  nations  who  have  acted  upon  the  idea 
that  they  must  advance  ?  Our  young  orators  cherish  this  notion 
with  a  fervid,  but  fatally  mistaken  zeal.  They  call  it  by  the  mys- 
terious name  of  "  destiny."  "  Our  destiny,"  they  say,  "  is  on- 
ward ; "  and  hence  they  argue,  with  ready  sophistry,  the  propriety 
of  seizing  upon  any  territory  and  any  people,  that  may  lie  in  the 
way  of  our  "  fated  "  advance.  Recently  these  progressives  have 
grown  classical ;  some  assiduous  student  of  antiquities  has  helped 
them  to  a  patron  saint.  They  have  wandered  back  into  the  deso- 
lated Pantheon,  and  there,  among  the  polytheistic  relics  of  that 
"pale  mother  of  dead  empires,"  they  have  found  a  god,  whom 
these  Romans,  centuries  gone  by,  baptized  "  Terminus." 

I  have  read  much  and  heard  somewhat  of  this  gentleman,  Ter- 
minus. Alexander  was  a  devotee  of  this  divinity.  We  have 
seen  the  end  of  him  and  his  empire.  It  was  said  to  be  an  attri- 
bute of  this  god,  that  he  must  always  advance  and  never  recede. 
So  both  republican  and  imperial  Rome  believed.  It  was,  as  they 
said,  their  destiny ;  and,  for  a  while,  it  did  seem  to  be  even 
550.  Roman  Terminus  did  advance.  Under  the  eagles  of  Rome, 
he  was  carried  from  his  home  on.  the  Tiber  to  the  furthest  east 
on  one  hand,  and  to  the  far  west,  among  the  then  barbarous 
tribes  of  Western  Europe,  on  the  other.  Rut  at  length  the  time 
came  when  retributive  justice  had  become' a  "destiny."  The 
despised  Gaul  calls  out  to  the  contemned  Goth,  and  Attila,  with 


298 


SPECIMENS  OP 


his  Huns,  answers  back  the  battle-shout  to  both.  The  "  blue-eyed 
nations  of  the  north,"  in  succession  of  united  strength,  pour  forth 
their  countless  hosts  of  warriors  upon  Rome,  and  Rome's  always 
advancing  god,  Terminus.  And  now  the  battle-axe  of  the  barba- 
rians strikes  down  the  conquering  eagle  of  Rome.  Terminus  at 
last  recedes ;  slowly  at  first,  but  finally  he  is  driven  to  Rome,  and 
from  Rome  to  Byzantium.  Whoever  would  know  the  further  fate 
of  this  Roman  deity,  may  find  ample  gratification  of  his  curiosity 
in  the  luminous  pages  of  Gibbon's  Decline  and  Fall.  Such  will 
find  that  Rome  thought  as  you  now  think,  that  it  was  her  destiny 
to  conquer  provinces  and  nations ;  and,  no  doubt,  she  sometimes 
said  as  you  say,  "  I  will  conquer  a  peace."  And  where  now  is 
she,  the  mistress  of  the  world  ?  The  spider  weaves  his  web  in  her 
palaces;  the  owl  sings  his  watch-song  in  her  towers.  Teutonic 
power  now  lords  it  over  the  servile  remnant,  the  miserable  memento 
of  old  and  once  omnipotent  Rome.  Sad,  very  sad  are  the  lessons 
which  time  has  written  for  us.  Through  and  in  them  all  I  see 
nothing  but  the  inflexible  execution  of  that  old  law,  which  ordains 
as  eternal  the  cardinal  rule,  "  Thou  shalt  not  covet  thy  neighbor's 
goods,  nor  anything  which  is  his." 

Since  I  have  lately  heard  so  much  about  the  dismemberment  of 
Mexico,  I  have  looked  back  to  see  how,  in  the  course  of  events 
which  some  call  "  Providence,"  it  has  fared  with  other  nations  who 
engaged  in  this  work  of  dismemberment.  I  see  that,  in  the  latter 
half  of  the  eighteenth  century,  three  powerful  nations,  Russia, 
Austria  and  Prussia,  united  in  the  dismemberment  of  Poland. 
They  said,  too,  as  you  say,  "  It  is  our  destiny."  They  "  wanted 
room."  Doubtless  each  of  these  thought,  with  his  share  of  Poland, 
his  power  was  too  strong  ever  to  fear  invasion,  or  even  insult. 
One  had  his  California,  another  his  New  Mexico,  and  a  third  his 
Vera  Cruz.  Did  they  remain  untouched  and  incapable  of  harm? 
Alas !  no ;  far,  very  for  from  it.  Retributive  justice  must  fulfil 
its  destiny,  too.  A  very  few  years  pass  off,  and  we  hear  of  a  new 
man,  a  Corsican  lieutenant,  the  self-named  "armed  soldier  of 
democracy,"  Napoleon.  He  ravages  Austria,  covers  her  land  with 
blood,  drives  the  northern  Caesar  from  his  capital,  and  sleeps  in  his 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


303 


And  I  have  stood  also  upon  the  hill  of  Zion,  the  city  of  Jerusa- 
lem, the  scene  of  our  Redeemer's  sufferings  and  crucifixion,  and 
ascension.  But  the  sceptre  has  departed  from  J udah,  and  its  glory 
from  the  capital  of  Solomon.  The  Assyrian,  the  Egyptian,  the 
Greek,  the  Roman,  the  Arab,  the  Turk,  and  the  crusader,  have 
passed  over  this  chief  place  of  Israel,  and  have  reft  it  of  its  power 
and  beauty.  Well  has  the  denunciation  of  the  prophet  of  misfor- 
tunes been  fulfilled,  when  he  declared  that  "  the  Lord  had  set  his 
face  against  this  city  for  evil,  and  not  for  good ; "  when  he  pro- 
nounced the  words  of  the  Most  High,  "  I  will  cause  to  cease  from 
the  city  of  J  udah  and  from  the  streets  of  Jerusalem  the  voice  of 
mirth  and  the  voice  of  gladness,  the  voice  of  the  bridegroom  and 
the  voice  of  the  bride ;  for  the  land  shall  be  desolate." 

.  In  those  regions  of  the  East  where  society  passed  its  infancy,  it 
seems  to  have  reached  decrepitude.  If  the  associations  which  the 
memory  of  the  past  glory  excites  are  powerful,  they  are  melan- 
choly. They  are  without  joy  for  the  present,  and  without  hope  for 
the  future.  But  here  we  are  in  the  freshness  of  youth,  and  can 
look  forward  with  national  confidence  to  ages  of  progress  in  all  that 
gives  power  and  pride  to  man,  and  dignity  to  human  nature.  No 
deeds  of  glory  hallow  this  region.  But  nature  has  been  bountiful 
to  it  in  its  best  gifts,  and  art  and  industry  are  at  work  to  extend 
and  improve  them.  You  cannot  pierce  the  barrier  which  shuts  in 
the  past,  and  separates  you  from  the  great  highway  of  nations. 
You  have  opened  a  vista  to  the  Atlantic  and  the  Gulf  of  Mexico. 
From  this  elevated  point  two  seas  are  before  us,  which  your  energy 
and  perseverance  have  brought  within  reach.  It  is  better  to  look 
forward  to  prosperity  than  back  to  glory.  To  the  mental  eye  no 
prospect  can  be  more  magnificent  than  here  meets  the  vision.  I 
need  not  stop  to  describe  it.  It  is  before  us  in  the  long  regions  of 
fertile  land  which  stretch  off  to  the  east  and  west,  to  the  north  and 
south,  in  all  the  advantages  that  Providence  has  liberally  bestowed 
upon  them,  and  in  the  changes  and  improvements  which  man  is 
making.  The  forest  is  fading  and  failing,  and  towns  and  villages 
are  rising  and  flourishing.  And,  better  still,  a  moral,  intelligent 
and  industrious  people  are  spreading  themselves  over  the  whole 


804 


SPECIMENS  OF 


face  of  the  country,  and  making  it  their  own  and  their  home.  And 
what  changes  and  chances  await  us  ?  Shall  we  go  on  increasing 
and  improving,  and  united  ?  or  shall  we  add  another  to  the  list  of 
republics  which  have  preceded  us,  and  which  have  fallen  the  vic- 
tims of  their  own  follies  and  dissensions  ?  My  faith  in  the  sta- 
bility of  our  institutions  is  enduring,  my  hope  is  strong;  for  they 
rest  upon  public  virtue  and  intelligence. 


SUFFERINGS  OF  GREECE.  —  R.  Jarvis. 

In  breathing  our  hopes  of  European  emancipation,  let  not 
Greece  —  lovely,  interesting  Greece  —  be  neglected  or  forgotten. 
0  Greece  !  the  cradle  of  the  poet  and  the  philosopher,  the  home  of 
the  hero  and  the  statesman,  —  whose  name  awakens  every  sublime 
recollection,  and  whose  ancient  memory  is  bound  to  the  American 
heart  by  every  tie  that  literature,  science,  or  love  of  liberty  can 
weave,  —  when  the  American  forgets  thee,  "  may  her  right  hand 
forget  her  cunning  !  "  Where  are  thy  glories  now  ?  The  feet  of 
barbarians  have  polluted  thy  soil,  and  the  siroc  of  despotism  has 
passed  over  thee.  Thy  Acropolis  is  crumbled  in  ruins;  thy  Par- 
thenon lays  low  in  dust ;  the  Muses  have  fled  thy  Parnassus ;  thy 
Helicon  murmurs  in  vain  ;  the  harp  of  thy  Homer  is  broken  ;  thy 
Sapphos  are  mute,  and  their  lyres  are  unstrung !  And  could  thy 
sufferings  excite  no  sympathy  in  the  bosoms  of  thy  royal  neigh- 
bors ?  Could  not  one  faith,  could  not  the  worship  of  one  Lord 
and  one  gospel,  could  not  the  voice  of  humanity,  call  forth  the 
Holy  Alliance  to  protect  thee,  or  restrain  them  from  monstrous 
combination  with  thy  oppressors  ?  0  monarchs  of  Europe !  mem- 
bers of  the  Holy  Alliance !  who  claim  to  be  Heaven's  vicege- 
rents, and  to  be  set  over  mankind  for  dispensing  that  happiness 
which  you  profanely  say  they  cannot  procure  for  themselves,  — 
how,  in  the  days  of  your  last  account,  will  the  genius  of  injured 
Greece  stand  before  you,  and  point  her  accusing  finger  to  your 
crimes  !  She  will  say,  "  My  children  sought  refuge  among  you, 
and  you  shut  your  door  against  them !  My  daughters  were  carried 
into  bondage,  and  your  ships  transported  them !   My  sons  implorod 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


301 


are  restored,"  they  exclaimed,  "the  treasury  and  the  frontiers  must 
bleed."  Can  gentlemen  now  say  that  an  Indian  peace,  without 
the  posts,  will  prove  firm  ?  No  !  it  will  not  be  peace,  but  a  sword  ; 
it  will  be  no  better  than  a  lure  to  draw  victims  within  the  reach 
of  the  tomahawk. 

On  this  theme  my  emotions  are  unutterable.  If  I  could  find 
words  for  them,  if  my  powers  bore  any  proportion  to  my  zeal,  I 
would  swell  my  voice  to  such  a  note  of  remonstrance,  it  should 
reach  every  log-house  beyond  the  mountains.  I  would  say  to  the 
inhabitants,  Wake  from  your  false  security !  Your  cruel  dangers, 
your  more  cruel  apprehensions,  are  soon  to  be  renewed.  The 
wounds,  yet  unhealed,  are  to  be  torn  open  again.  In  the  day-time 
your  path  through  the  woods  will  be  ambushed.  The  darkness  of 
midnight  will  glitter  with  the  blaze  of  your  dwellings.  You  are  a 
father,  —  the  blood  of  your  sons  shall  fatten  your  corn-fields ! 
You  are  a  mother,  —  the  war-whoop  shall  wake  the  sleep  of  the 
cradle ! 

Who  will  say  that  I  exaggerate  the  tendencies  of  our  measures  ? 
Will  any  one  answer,  by  a  sneer,  that  all  this  is  idle  preaching? 
Will  any  one  deny  that  we  are  bound,  and,  I  would  hope,  to  good 
purpose,  by  the  most  solemn  sanctions  of  duty,  for  the  vote  we 
give  ?  Are  despots  alone  to  be  reproached  for  unfeeling  indiffer- 
ence to  the  tears  and  blood  of  their  subjects  ?  Are  republicans 
irresponsible?  Can  you  put  the  dearest  interest  of  society  at  risk, 
without  guilt,  and  without  remorse?  It  is  vain  to  offer,  as  an 
excuse,  that  public  men  are  not  to  be  reproached  for  the  evils  that 
may  happen  to  ensue  from  their  measures.  This  is  very  true, 
where  they  are  unforeseen  or  inevitable.  Those  I  have  depicted 
are  not  unforeseen ;  they  are  so  far  from  inevitable,  we  are  going 
to  bring  them  into  being  by  our  vote.  We  choose  the  conse- 
quences, and  become  as  justly  answerable  for  them  as  for  the  meas- 
ure that  we  know  will  produce  them. 

By  rejecting  the"  posts,  we  light  the  savage  fires,  we  bind  the 
victims.  This  day  we  undertake  to  render  account  to  the  widows 
and  orphans  whom  our  decision  will  make  ;  —  to  the  wretches  that 
will  be  roasted  at  the  stake ;  to  our  country,  and,  I  do  not  deem  it 
26 


302 


SPECIMENS  OF 


too  serious  to  say,  to  conscience  and  to  God,  we  are  answerable ; 
and,  if  duty  be  anything  more  than  a  word  of  imposture,  if  con- 
science be  not  a  bugbear,  we  are  preparing  to  make  ourselves  as 
wretched  as  our  country.  There  is  no  mistake  in  this  case.  There 
can  be  none.  Experience  has  already  been  the  prophet  of  events, 
and  the  cries  of  our  future  victims  have  already  reached  us.  The 
western  inhabitants  are  not  a  silent  and  uncomplaining  sacrifice. 
The  voice  of  humanity  issues  from  the  shade  of  the  wilderness.  It 
exclaims  that,  while  one  hand  is  held  up  to  reject  this  treaty,  the 
other  grasps  a  tomahawk.  It  summons  our  imagination  to  the 
scenes  that  will  open.  It  is  no  great  effort  to  the  imagination  to 
conceive  that  events  so  near  are  already  begun.  I  can  fancy  that  I 
listen  to  the  yells  of  savage  vengeance,  and  the  shrieks  of  torture ! 
Already  they  seem  to  sigh  in  the  western  wind !  Already  they 
mingle  with  every  echo  from  the  mountains ! 


THE  OLD  WORLD  AND  THE  NEW.  —  L.  Cass. 

What  American  can  survey  the  field  of  battle  at  Bunker  Hill  or 
at  New  Orleans,  without  recalling  the  deeds  which  will  render  these 
names  imperishable  ?  Who  can  pass  the  islands  of  Lake  Erie, 
without  thinking  upon  those  who  sleep  in  the  waters  below,  and 
upon  the  victory  which  broke  the  power  of  the  enemy,  and  led  to 
the  security  of  an  extensive  frontier  ?  There  no  monument  can  be 
erected,  for  the  waves  roll  and  will  roll  over  them.  But  he  who 
met  the  enemy  and  made  them  ours,  and  his  devoted  companions, 
will  live  in  the  recollections  of  the  American  people,  while  there  is 
virtue  to  admire,  patriotism  or  gratitude  to  reward  it.  I  have 
stood  upon  the  plain  of  Marathon,  the  battle-field  of  liberty.  It  is 
silent  and  desolate.  Neither  Greek  nor  Persian  is  there,  to  give 
life  and  animation  to  the  scene.  It  is  bounded  by  sterile  hills  on 
one  side,  and  lashed  by  the  eternal  waves  of  the  iEgean  Sea  on 
the  other.  But  Greek  and  Persian  were  once  there,  and  that 
dreary  spot  was  alive  with  hostile  armies,  who  fought  the  great 
fight  which  rescued  Greece  from  the  yoke  of  Persia. 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


305 


your  aid,  and  you  gave  it  to  their  enemies  !  My  cities  "were  laid 
in  ruins,  and  you  furnished  the  firebrands  !  But  for  you,  the  bar- 
barians had  been  long  since  subdued,  and  my  land  the  abode  of 
liberty,  peace,  and  happiness  !  But  for  you,  the  fires  of  Scio  had 
never  been  kindled,  and  the  blood  that  now  stains  every  blade  of 
grass  in  my  violated  territory  would  still  have  warmed  hearts  more 
generous  than  your  own  !  "  But,  however  great  the  sufferings  of 
this  people,  however  formidable  their  enemies,  or  however  efficiently 
aided  by  Christian  kings,  yet  God  will  prosper  their  righteous 
cause,  and  scatter  confusion  among  their  enemies.  The  spirit  of 
ancient  Greece  is  waked  from  the  slumber  of  ages !  The  tongue 
of  Demosthenes  is  loosed ;  the  sword  of  Miltiades  is  drawn ;  every 
strait  is  a  Salamis,  and  every  sailor  a  Themistocles ;  a  Leonidas 
starts  up  in  every  peasant,  and  every  mountain  pass  becomes  a 
new  Thermopylae  !  And  not  only  in  Greece  shall  the  Moloch  of 
royalty  be  overturned,  but  in  whatever  corner  of  Europe  the  idol 
can  find  worshippers.  The  reign  of  kings  is  a  violation  of  natural 
right.  The  cause  of  mankind  is  not  their  cause.  The  day  of 
retribution  approaches !  The  clouds  are  gathering !  The  tempest 
will  soon  burst !  And  when  royalty  shall  be  swept  away  in  its 
avenging  fury,  the  rainbow  of  republicanism  shall  span  the 
heavens,  giving  promise  of  lasting  peace  and  security ! 


GREAT  BRITAIN  NOT  INVINCIBLE.  —  /.  C.  Calhoun. 

This  country  is  left  alone  to  support  the  rights  of  neutrals. 
Perilous  is  the  condition,  and  arduous  the  task.  We  are  not  intim- 
idated. We  stand  opposed  to  British  usurpation,  and  by  our  spirit 
and  efforts  have  done  all  in  our  power  to  save  the  last  vestiges  of 
neutral  rights.  Yes,  our  embargoes,  non-intercourse,  non-  importa- 
tion, and,  finally,  war,  are  all  manly  exertions  to  preserve  the 
rights  of  this  and  other  nations  from  the  deadly  grasp  of  British 
maritime  policy.  But,  say  our  opponents,  these  efforts  are  lost, 
and  our  condition  hopeless.  If  so,  it  only  remains  for  us  to  assume 
the  garb  of  our  condition.  We  must  submit,  humbly  submit 
26* 


306  SPECIMENS  OF 

crave  pardon,  and  hug  our  chains.  It  is  not  wise  to  provoke  whera 
we  cannot  resist.  But  first  let  us  be  well  assured  of  the  hope- 
lessness of  our  state  before  we  sink  into  submission.  On  what  do 
our  opponents  rest  their  despondent  and  slavish  belief  ?  On  the 
recent  events  in  Europe  ?  I  admit  they  are  great,  and  well  calcu- 
lated to  impose  on  the  imagination.  Our"  enemy  never  presented 
a  more  imposing  exterior.  His  fortune  is  at  the  flood.  But  I  am 
admonished  by  universal  experience  that  such  prosperity  is  the 
most  precarious  of  human  conditions.  From  the  flood  the  tide 
dates  its  ebb.  From  the  meridian  the  sun  commences  his  decline. 
Depend  upon  it,  there  is  more  of  sound  philosophy  than  of  fiction 
in  the  fickleness  which  poets  attribute  to  fortune.  Prosperity  has 
its  weakness,  adversity  its  strength.  In  many  respects  our  enemy 
has  lost  by  those  very  changes  which  seem  so  very  much  in  his 
favor.  He  can  no  more  claim  to  be  struggling  for  existence ;  no 
more  to  be  fighting  the  battles  of  the  world  in  defence  of  the  liber- 
ties of  mankind.  The  magic  cry  of  "  French  influence  "  is  lost. 
In  this  very  hall  we  are  not  strangers  to  that  sound.  Here,  even 
here,  the  cry  of  "  French  influence,"  that  baseless  fiction,  that 
phantom  of  faction  now  banished,  often  resounded.  I  rejoice  that 
the  spell  is  broken  by  which  it  was  attempted  to  bind  the  spirit  of 
this  youthful  nation.  The  minority  can  no  longer  act  under  cover, 
but  must  come  out  and  defend  their  opposition  on  its  own  intrinsic 
merits.  Our  example  can  scarcely  fail  to  produce  its  effects  on 
other  nations  interested  in  the  maintenance  of  maritime  rights. 
But  if,  unfortunately,  we  should  be  left  alone  to  maintain  the  con- 
test, and  if  —  which  may  God  forbid !  —  necessity  should  compel 
us  to  yield  for  the  present,  yet  our  generous  efforts  will  not  have 
been  lost.  A  mode  of  thinking  and  a  tone  of  sentiment  have  gone 
abroad  which  must  stimulate  to  future  and  more  successful  strug- 
gles. What  could  not  be  done  with  eight  millions  of  people  will 
be  done  with  twenty.  The  great  cause  will  never  be  yielded  ;  no, 
never,  never !  I  hear  the  future  audibly  announced  in  the  past, 
in  the  splendid  victories  over  the  Guerriere,  Java  and  Macedonian. 
We,  and  all  nations,  by  these  victories  are  taught  a  lesson  never 
to  be  forgotten.  Opinion  is  power.  The  charm  of  British  naval 
invincibility  is  gone. 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


307 


THE  FOURTH  OF  JULY.  —  G.  S.  HiUard. 

It  cannot  be  denied  that  we  have  been,  for  some  time  past,  grow- 
ing indifferent  to  the  celebration  of  this  day.  It  was  once  hailed 
—  and  some  who  hear  me  can  remember  the  time  —  with  emotions 
too  deep  for  words.  The  full  hearts  of  men  overflowed  in  the 
copious,  gushing  tears  of  childhood,  and  silently  went  up  to  heaven 
on  the  wings  of  praise.  With  their  own  sweat  and  their  own  blood 
they  had  won  their  inheritance  of  peace,  and  they  prized  it  accord- 
ingly. They  were  yet  fresh  from  the  great  events  which  we  read 
of  as  cold  matters  of  history.  The  storm  had  passed  by,  but  the 
swell  of  the  troubled  waters,  rising  in  dark-heaving  ridges,  yet 
marked  its  duration  and  violence.  All  things  then  wore  the  beauty 
of  novelty,  and  long  possession  had  not  dulled  the  sense  of  enjoy- 
ment. The  golden  light  and  glittering  dews  of  the  morning  were 
above  and  around  them.  The  wine  of  life  sparkled  and  foamed  in 
its  freshly-poured  cup.  The  lovely  form  of  Liberty  —  to  us  so 
familiar  —  seemed  like  a  bright  vision,  newly  lighted  upon  this 
orb,  from  the  starry  courts  of  heaven ;  and  men  hung,  with  the 
rapture  of  lovers,  upon  her  inspiring  glances  and  her  animating 
smiles.  But  a  half-century  has  rolled  by,  and  a  new  generation 
has  sprung  up,  who  seem  to  think  that  their  social  and  political 
privileges  belong  to  them  as  naturally  as  air  and  light,  and  reflect 
as  little  upon  the  way  in  which  they  came  by  them.  The  very 
magnitude  of  our  blessings  makes  us  insensible  to  their  value,  as 
the  ancients  supposed  that  the  music  of  the  spheres  could  not  be 
heard,  because  it  was  so  loud.  The  whole  thing  has  become  to  us 
an  old  story.  We  have  heard  so  much  of  the  spirit  of  Seventy-six, 
and  of  the  times  that  tried  men's  souls,  that  we  are  growing  weary 
of  the  sound.  The  same  feeling  which  made  the  Athenians  tired 
of  hearing  Aristides  called  the  just  makes  us  tired  of  hearing  this 
called  a  glorious  anniversary.  But  that  man  is  little  to  be  envied 
who  cannot  disentangle  this  occasion  from  the  secondary  and  debas- 
ing associations  which  cling  to  it, — from  its  noise,  its  dust,  its 
confusion,  its  dull  orations  and  vapid  toasts,  —  and,  ascending  at 
once  into  a  higher  region  of  thought  and  feeling,  reeognjze  the 


308 


SPECIMENS  OF 


full,  unimpaired  force  of  that  grand  manifestation  of  moral  powei 
which  has  consecrated  the  day.  A  cold  indifference  to  this  cele- 
bration would,  in  itself,  be  a  sign  of  ominous  import  to  the  for- 
tunes of  the  republic.  He  who  greets  the  light  of  this  morning 
with  no  throb  of  generous  feeling  is  unworthy  of  a  share  in  that 
heritage  of  glory  which  he  claims  by  right  of  the  blood  which 
flows  in  his  degenerate  veins.  That  man,  had  he  lived  sixty  years 
ago,  would  most  surely  have  been  found  wanting  to  his  country,  in 
her  hour  of  agony  and  struggle.  Neither  with  tongue,  nor  purse, 
nor  hand,  would  he  have  aided  the  most  inspiring  cause  that  ever 
appealed  to  a  magnanimous  breast.  The  same  cast  of  character 
which  makes  one  incapable  of  feeling  an  absorbing  emotion,  makes 
him  incapable  of  heroic  efforts  and  heroic  sacrifices.  He  who  can- 
not forget  himself  in  admiring  true  greatness,  can  never  be  great; 
and  the  power  of  justly  appreciating  and  heartily  reverencing 
exalted  merit  is,  in  itself,  an  unequivocal  sign  of  a  noble  nature. 


FUTURE  EMPIRE  OF  OUR  LANGUAGE.  —  G.  W.  Bethune. 

The  products  of  the  whole  world  are,  or  may  soon  be,  found 
within  our  confederated  limits.  Already  there  had  been  a  salu- 
tary mixture  of  blood,  but  not  enough  to  impair  the  Anglo-Saxon 
ascendency.  The  nation  grew  morally  strong  from  its  original 
elements.  The  great  work  was  delayed  only  by  a  just  preparation. 
Now,  God  is  bringing  hither  the  most  vigorous  scions  from  all  the 
European  stocks,  to  make  of  them  all  one  new  man ;  —  not  the 
Saxon,  not  the  German,  not  the  Gaul,  not  the  Helvetian,  but  the 
American.  Here  they  will  unite  as  one  brotherhood,  will  have 
cue  law,  will  share  one  interest.  Spread  over  the  vast  region 
from  the  frigid  to  the  torrid,  from  the  eastern  to  the  western 
ocean,  every  variety  of  climate  giving  them  choice  of  pursuit  and 
modification  of  temperament,  the  ballot-box  fusing  together  all 
rivalries,  they  shall  have  one  national  will.  What  is  wanting  in 
one  race  will  be  supplied  by  the  characteristic  energies  of  the  oth- 
ers ;  and  what  is  excesssive  in  either,  checked  by  the  counter  action 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


309 


of  the  rest.  Nay,  though  for  a  time  the  newly-come  may  retain 
their  foreign  vernacular,  our  tongue,  so  rich  in  ennobling  litera- 
ture, will  be  the  tongue  of  the  nation,  the  language  of  its  laws, 
and  the  accent  of  its  majesty.  Eternal  God,  who  seest  the  end 
with  the  beginning,  Thou  alone  canst  tell  the  ultimate  grandeur 
of  this  people ! 

Such  is  the  sphere,  present  and  future,  in  which  God  calls  us 
to  work  for  him,  for  our  country,  and  for  mankind.  The  language 
in  which  we  utter  truth  will  be  spoken  on  this  continent,  a  century 
hence,  by  thirty  times  more  millions  than  those  dwelling  on  the 
island  of  its  origin.  The  openings  for  trade  on  the  Pacific  coast, 
and  the  railroad  across  the  isthmus,  will  bring  the  commerce  of 
the  world  under  the  control  of  our  race.  The  empire  of  our  lan- 
guage will  follow  that  of  our  commerce ;  the  empire  of  our  insti- 
tutions, that  of  our  language.  The  man  who  writes  successfully 
for  America  will  yet  speak  for  all  the  world  ! 


ADDRESS  TO  KOSSUTH.  —  E.  Hopkins. 

The  people  of  Massachusetts,  sir,  would  have  you  accept  this  act 
of  her  constituted  authorities  as  no  unmeaning  compliment.  Never, 
in  her  history  as  an  independent  state,  with  one  single  and  illus- 
trious exception,  has  Massachusetts  tendered  such  a  mark  of 
respect  to  any  other  than  the  chief  magistrates  of  these  United 
States.  And  even  in  the  present  instance,  much  as  she  admires 
your  patriotism,  your  eloquence,  your  untiring  devotedness  and 
zeal,  —  deeply  as  she  is  moved  by  your  plaintive  appeals  and  sup- 
plications in  behalf  of  your  native  and  oppressed  land,  —  greatly 
as  she  is  amazed  at  the  irrepressible  elasticity  with  which  you  rise 
from  under  the  heel  of  oppression,  with  fortitude  increased  under 
Bufferings,  and  with  assurance  growing  stronger  as  the  darkness 
grows  deeper,  —  still,  it  is  not  one  or  all  of  these  qualities  combined 
that  can  lead  her  to  swerve  from  her  dignity  as  an  independent 
state  to  the  mere  worship  of  man.  No.  But  it  is  because  she 
views  you  as  the  advocate  and  providential  representative  of  cer- 


310 


SPECIMENS  OF 


tain  great  principles  which  constitute  her  own  vitality  as  a  state, — 
because  she  views  you  as  the  representative  of  human  rights  and 
freedom  in  another  and  far  distant  land,  —  it  is  because  she  views 
you  as  the  rightful  bat  exiled  governor  of  a  people  whose  past  his- 
tory and  whose  recent  deeds  show  them  to  be  worthy  of  some  bet- 
ter future  than  that  of  Russian  tyranny  and  Austrian  oppression, 
—  that  she  seeks  to  welcome  you  to  her  borders ;  that  she  seeks  to 
attest  to  a  gazing  world  that  to  the  cause  of  freedom  she  is  not 
insensible,  and  that  to  the  oppression  of  tyrants  she  is  not  indif- 
ferent. 

It  is  well,  sir,  that  your  feet  have  not  yet  pressed  the  soil  of 
Massachusetts.  It  is  well  that  you  landed  elsewhere ;  that  you 
have  surged  the  most  prosperous  portions  of  the  Atlantic  coast ; 
that  you  have  surmounted  the  formidable  Alleghanies,  and  planted 
your  feet  in  the  confines  of  this  great  valley.  It  is  well  that  you 
should  comprehend  its  vast  extent ;  that  you  should  float  down 
these  mighty  streams,  and  survey  these  mighty  valleys ;  that, 
when  your  soul  has  become  expanded  by  these  scenes,  and  gratified 
by  the  free  institutions  which  adorn  and  bless  them,  then,  and  not 
till  then,  should  you  turn  your  footsteps  on  a  holy  pilgrimage  to 
the  spot  where  American  liberty  had  its  birth.  Its  embryo  slum- 
bered in  the  souls  of  those  illustrious  and  highly  accomplished 
Puritan  exiles,  when,  with  religion  for  their  handmaid,  they  set 
foot  on  the  rock  of  Plymouth,  and  encountered  the  stern  rigors  of 
a  New  England  winter.  Their  first-born  child  was  popular  educa- 
tion. Their  second  was  popular  freedom.  In  what  words  can  the 
history  of  any  commonwealth  be  so  gloriously  emblazoned,  as  in 
those  three  words,  and  in  the  order  in  which  I  name  them, — 
religion,  education,  freedom?  Here,  sir,  is  a  tri-color  for  the 
world. 

Such,  preeminently  such,  is  the  record  of  Massachusetts.  One 
word  only  need  be  added  to  bring  her  history  to  the  present  hour, 
and  that  is  but  a  corollary  of  the  former,  —  I  mean,  prosperity. 
As  the  man  of  piety  surveys  her  borders,  numbers  her  people, 
counts  their  wealth,  he  finds  a  new  fact  added  to  the  proof  of  ages, 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


311 


—  "  Never  have  I  seen  the  righteous  forsaken,  nor  his  seed  beg- 
ging bread." 

I  have  said,  sir,  that  Massachusetts  is  the  birth-place  of  Ameri- 
can liberty.  When,  then,  you  have  seen  the  full  stature  with  which 
she  fills  these  vast  valleys  and  stretches  herself  over  these  mighty 
mountains,  come  to  our  little  nursery,  so  retired  from  the  turmoils 
and  corruptions  of  the  Old  World,  and  we  will  show  you  the 
cradle  where  she  was  rocked  to  notes  of  eloquence,  which,  while 
they  soothed  her  fears,  awakened  a  mighty  continent  to  her  nur- 
ture and  defence.  Come,  sir,  and  we  will  show  you  the  holy  spot 
where  the  first  baptismal  blood  of  the  Revolution  was  sprinkled 
upon  her  consecrated  head,  the  camp-ground  where  Washington 
first  unsheathed  his  sword  in  her  defence,  and  the  fortifications 
which  he  first  erected  for  her  intrenchment.  From  the  windows 
and  balconies  of  the  legislative  halls  whence  this  invitation  to  you 
has  emanated,  these  spots  can  be  seen. 

Come,  then,  and  stand  amid  these  hallowed  scenes ;  gaze  upcn 
them,  listen  to  their  silent  eloquence,  till  it  steals  through  every 
fibre,  and  breaks  up  every  fountain  of  your  soul.  Drink  with  us  of 
these  first  well-springs  of  American  liberty,  and  you  will  find  them 
still  gushing  and  pure !  Ah,  sir,  is  it  not  fitting  that  your  last 
pilgrimage  on  this  continent  should  be  to  such  a  place,  —  that,  as 
you  embark  for  the  Old  World,  your  parting  act  should  be  to 
drink  at  the  most  hallowed  fountains  of  the  New  ?  Sir,  Massa- 
chusetts will  welcome  you.  She  is  the  descendant  of  illustrious 
exiles,  who,  fleeing  from  oppression  in  the  Old  World,  sought  free- 
dom in  the  New.  Her  past  history,  her  filial  piety,  bids  you  wel- 
come as  an  exile.  Herself  the  first  in  legal  resistance  to  illegal 
acts,  in  constitutional  resistance  to  unconstitutional  oppression, 
how  can  she  do  otherwise  than  welcome  those  who  follow  in  her 
,  footsteps  ?  Prospered  almost  without  a  parallel  as  she  has  been 
under  the  smiles  of  a  kind  Providence,  she  can  give  but  a  poor 
account  of  her  stewardship,  unless  her  institutions  of  religion,  of 
education,  of  philanthropy,  of  freedom,  can  afford  most  valuable 
information  to  all  who  seek  to  found  new  states,  or,  like  yourself, 
to  regenerate  and  revive  those  that  are  old. 


312  SPECIMENS  OF 

I  speak  of  her  institutions  of  freedom.  I  mean  her  distinct 
municipalities.  There  is  no  centralization  there.  Distributed  into 
three  hundred  and  twenty- two  cities  and  townships,  it  is  in  these, 
by  her  literally  democratic  assemblages,  that  her  government  is 
chiefly  carried  on.  No  central  government  established  and  patron- 
izes our  four  thousand  public  schools.  No  central  government 
levies  our  taxes  to  fill  her  coffers  and  feed  her  parasites.  Each 
town  provides  for  itself,  levies  its  own  taxes,  sustains  its  own 
schools,  establishes  its  own  municipal  regulations,  and  in  each  and 
all  of  these  acts  is  independent  of  every  other.  The  cause  of  edu- 
cation and  of  freedom  is  thus  reposed  in  the  hands  and  hearts  of 
the  people.  Reposed,  did  I  say  ?  No,  sir  !  it  is  because  of  those 
hands  and  hearts  that  freedom  and  education  have  no  repose,  but 
are  pushed  into  the  most  active,  vigorous  and  advancing  life  ! 


THE  SOUTH  DURING  THE  REVOLUTION  —R.Y.  Hayne. 

If  there  be  one  state  in  the  Union  (and  I  say  it  not  in  a  boastful 
spirit)  that  may  challenge  comparisons  with  any  other,  for  an  uni- 
form, zealous,  ardent  and  uncalculating  devotion  to  the  Union,  that 
state  is  South  Carolina.  From  the  very  commencement  of  the 
Revolution,  up  to  this  hour,  there  is  no  sacrifice,  however  great, 
she  has  not  cheerfully  made,  —  no  service  she  has  ever  hesitated 
to  perform.  She  has  adhered  to  you  in  your  prosperity ;  but  in 
your  adversity  she  has  clung  to  you  with  more  than  filial  affection. 
No  matter  what  was  the  condition  of  her  domestic  affairs, — 
though  deprived  of  her  resources,  divided  by  parties,  or  surrounded 
with  difficulties,  —  the  call  of  the  country  has  been  to  her  as  the 
voice  of  God.  Domestic  discord  ceased  at  the  sound ;  every  man 
became  at  once  reconciled  to  his  brethren,  and  the  sons  of  Carolina 
were  all  seen  crowding  together  to  the  temple,  bringing  their  gifts 
to  the  altar  of  their  common  country. 

What  was  the  conduct  of  the  South  during  the  Revolution  ? 
I  honor  New  England  for  her  conduct  in  that  glorious  struggle. 
But,  great  as  is  the  praise  which  belongs  to  her,  T  think  at  least 
equal  honor  is  "due  to  the  South.    They  espoused  the  quarrel  of 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


313 


their  brethren,  with  a  generous  zeal,  which  did  not  suffer  them  to 
stop  to  calculate  their  interest  in  the  dispute.  Favorites  of  the 
mother  country,  possessed  of  neither  ships  nor  seamen  to  create  a 
commercial  rivalship,  they  might  have  found  in  their  situation  a 
guarantee  that  their  trade  would  be  forever  fostered  and  protected 
by  Great  Britain.  But,  trampling  on  all  considerations  either  of 
interest  or  of  safety,  they  rushed  into  the  conflict,  and,  fighting  for 
principle,  perilled  all,  in  the  sacred  cause  of  freedom.  Never  was 
there  exhibited,  in  the  history  of  the  world,  higher  examples  of 
noble  daring,  dreadful  suffering  and  heroic  endurance,  than  by  the 
Whigs  of  Carolina,  during  the  Be  volution.  The  whole  state,  from 
the  mountains  to  the  sea,  was  overrun  by  an  overwhelming  force 
of  enemy.  The  fruits  of  industry  perished  on  the  spot  where  they 
were  produced,  or  were  consumed  by  the  foe.  The  "  plains  of 
Carolina "  drank  up  the  most  precious  blood  of  her  citizens. 
Black  and  smoking  ruins  marked  the  places  which  had  been  the 
habitations  of  her  children.  Driven  from  their  homes  into  the 
gloomy  and  almost  impenetrable  swamps,  even  there  the  spirit  of 
liberty  survived ;  and  South  Carolina,  sustained  by  the  example 
of  her  Sumpters  and  her  Marions,  proved,  by  her  conduct,  that, 
though  her  soil  might  be  overrun,  the  spirit  of  her  people  was 
invincible. 


LOUIS  KOSSUTH.  —  II.  Mann. 

With  what  enthusiasm  did  we  hail  the  birth  of  the  South 
American  republics  !  What  hosannas  did  we  shout  forth  for  the 
emancipation  of  Greece  !  How  deep  the  sigh  of  the  nation's  heart 
when  Poland  struggled  in  her  death-agony  and  breathed  her  last ! 
Even  so  late  as  1848,  this  Congress  sent  resolutions  congratulating; 
France  on  her  Magna  Charta  of  "  liberty,  equality  and  fraternity." 
In  one  of  the  European  revolutions  of  that  year,  on  the  banks  of 
the  Danube,  a  young  man  sprang,  at  a  single  bound,  from  compar- 
ative obscurity  to  universal  fame.  His  heroism  organized  armies. 
His  genius  created  resources.  He  abolished  the  factitious  order  of 
27 


814 


SPECIMENS  OF 


nobility  ;  but  his  exalted  soul  poured  the  celestial  ichor  of  the  godg 
through  ten  millions  of  peasant  hearts,  and  made  them  truly  noble. 
Though  weak  in  all  but  the  energies  of  the  soul,  yet  it  took  two 
mighty  empires  to  break  down  his  power.  When  he  sought  refuge 
in  Turkey,  the  sympathies  of  the  civilized  world  attended  his  exile. 
He  was  invited  to  our  shores.  He  came,  and  spoke  as  man  never 
before  spake.  It  was  Byron's  wish  that  he  could  condense  all  the 
raging  elements  of  his  soul 

u  into  one  word, 
And  that  one  word  were  lightning." 

Kossuth  found  what  Byron  in  vain  prayed  for ;  for  all  his  words 
were  lightning ;  —  not  bolts,  but  a  lambent  flame,  which  he  poured 
into  men's  hearts,  not  to  kill,  but  to  animate  with  a  more  exalted 
and  a  diviner  life.  In  cities  where  the  vast  population  went  forth 
to  hail  him,  in  academic  halls  where  the  cultivation  of  eloquence 
and  knowledge  is  made  the  business  of  life,  in  those  great  gather- 
ing places  where  the  rivers  of  people  have  their  confluence,  he 
was  addressed  by  the  most  eloquent  men  whom  this  nation  of  ora- 
tors could  select.  More  than  five  hundred  of  our  selectest  speakers 
spoke  speeches  before  him  which  they  had  laboriously  prepared 
from  history  and  embellished  from  the  poets,  with  severe  toil,  by 
the  long-trimmed  lamp.  Save  in  two  or  three  peculiar  cases,  his 
unprepared  and  improvised  replies,  in  eloquence,  in  pathos,  in  dig- 
nity, in  exalted  sentiment,  excelled  them  all.  For  their  most  pro- 
found philosophy,  he  gave  them  deeper  generalizations ;  he  out- 
circuited  their  widest  ranges  of  thought,  and  in  the  whole  sweep 
of  the  horizon  revealed  glories  they  had  never  seen ;  and,  while 
they  checked  their  ambitious  flight  beneath  the  sun,  he  soared  into 
the  empyrean,  and  brought  down,  for  the  guidance  of  men's  hearts 
and  deeds,  the  holy  light  that  shines  from  the  face  of  God.  Though 
all  their  splendors  were  gathered  to  a  focal  point,  they  were  out- 
shone by  his  effulgence.  His  immortal  theme  was  liberty — lib- 
erty for  the  nations,  liberty  for  the  people  ! 

The  person  of  this  truly  noble  Hungarian  has  departed  from  our 
shores ;  but  he  has  left  a  spirit  behind  him  that  will  never  die. 
He  has  scattered  seeds  of  liberty  and  truth,  whose  flowers  and 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


815 


fruit  will  become  honors  and  glorious  amaranthine.  I  trust  he 
goes  to  mingle  in  sterner  scenes ;  I  trust  he  goes  to  battle  for  the 
right,  not  with  the  tongue  and  pen  alone,  but  with  all  the  weapons 
that  freedom  can  forge  and  wield  I  Before  the  divine  government 
I  bow  in  reverence  and  adoration ;  but  it  tasks  all  my  philosophy 
and  all  my  religion  to  believe  that  the  despots  of  Europe  have  not 
exercised  their  irresponsible  and  cruel  tyrannies  too  long.  It  seems 
too  long  since  Charles  was  brought  to  the  axe,  and  Louis  to  the  guil- 
lotine. Liberty,  humanity,  justice,  demand  more  modern  instances. 
The  time  has  fully  come  when  the  despot,  not  the  patriot,  should 
feel  the  executioner's  steel  or  lead.  The  time  has  fully  come 
when,  if  the  oppressed  demand  their  inalienable  and  heaven-born 
rights  of  their  oppressors,  and  this  demand  is  denied,  that  they 
should  say,  not  exactly  in  the  language  of  Patrick  Henry,  "  Give 
me  liberty,  or  give  me  death;  "  —  that  was  noble  language  in  its 
day ;  but  we  have  now  reached  an  advanced  stage  in  humau  devel- 
opment, and  the  time  has  fully  come  when  the  oppressed,  if  their 
rights  are  forcibly  denied  them,  should  say  to  the  oppressor,  "  Give 
me  liberty,  or  I  will  give  you  death !  " 


AMERICAN  INSTITUTIONS.  —  3/.  Van  Buren. 

Half  a  century,  teeming  with  extraordinary  events,  and  else- 
where producing  astonishing  results,  has  passed  along ;  but  on  our 
institutions  it  has  left  no  injurious  mark.  From  a  small  commu- 
nity we  have  risen  to  a  people  powerful  in  numbers  and  in  strength  ; 
but  with  our  increase  has  gone  hand  in  hand  the  progress  of  just 
principles ;  the  privileges,  civil  and  religious,  of  the  humblest  indi- 
vidual, are  still  sacredly  protected  at  home ;  while  the  valor  and 
fortitude  of  our  people  have  removed  from  us  the  slightest  appre- 
hension of  foreign  power,  they  have  not  yet  induced  us,  in  a  single 
instance,  to  forget  what  is  right.  Our  commerce  has  been  extended 
to  the.  remotest  nations  ;  the  value  and  even  nature  of  our  pro- 
ductions have  been  greatly  changed ;  a  wide  difference  has  arisen 
in  the  relative  wealth  and  resources  of  every  portion  of  our  coun- 


316 


SPECIMENS  OP 


try ;  yet  the  spirit  of  mutual  regard  and  of  faithful  adherence  to 
existing  compacts  has  continued  to  prevail  in  our  councils,  and 
never  long  been  absent  from  our  conduct.  We  have  learned  by 
experience  a  fruitful  lesson,  —  that  an  implicit  and  undeviating 
adherence  to  the  principles  on  which  we  set  out  can  carry  us  pros- 
perously onward  through  all  the  conflicts  of  circumstances,  and  the 
vicissitudes  inseparable  from  the  lapse  of  years. 

The  success  that  has  attended  our  great  experiment  is,  in  itself, 
a  sufficient  cause  for  gratitude,  on  account  of  the  happiness  it  has 
actually  conferred,  and  the  example  it  has  unanswerably  given. 
But  to  me,  looking  forward  to  the  far-distant  future  with  ardent 
prayers  and  confiding  hopes,  this  retrospect  presents  a  ground  for 
still  deeper  delight.  It  impresses  on  my  mind  a  firm  belief  that 
the  perpetuity  of  our  institutions  depends  upon  ourselves  ;  that,  if 
we  maintain  the  principles  on  which  they  were  established,  they 
are  destined  to  confer  their  benefits  on  countless  generations  yet  to 
come ;  and  that  America  will  present  to  every  friend  of  mankind 
the  cheering  proof  that  a  popular  .government,  wisely  formed,  is 
wanting  in  no  element  of  endurance  or  strength.  Fifty  years  ago 
its  rapid  failure  was  boldly  predicted.  Latent  and  uncontrollable 
causes  of  dissolution  were  supposed  to  exist,  even  by  the  wise  and 
the  good ;  and  not  only  unfriendly  or  speculative  theorists  antici- 
pated for  us  the  fate  of  past  republics,  but  the  fears  of  many  an 
honest  patriot  overbalanced  his  sanguine  hopes.  Look  back  on 
these  forebodings,  not  hastily  but  reluctantly  made,  and  see  how, 
in  every  instance,  they  have  completely  failed ! 


EARLY  DEEDS  OF  OUR  FATHERS.  —  /.  Q.  Adams. 

Americans  !  let  us  pause  for  a  moment  to  consider  the  situation 
of  our  country  at  that  eventful  day  when  our  national  existence 
commenced.  In  the  full  possession  and  enjoyment  of  all  those 
prerogatives  for  which  you  then  dared  to  adventure  upon  "  all  the 
varieties  of  untried  being,"  the  calm  and  settled  moderation  of  the 
mind  is  scarcely  competent  to  conceive  the  tone  of  heroism  to 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE.  317 

which  the  souls  of  freemen  were  exalted  in  that  hour  of  perilous 
magnanimity.  Seventeen  times  has  the  sun,  in  the  progress  of  his 
annual  revolutions,  diffused  his  prolific  radiance  over  the  plains  of 
independent  America.  3Iillions  of  hearts,  which  then  palpitated 
with  the  rapturous  glow  of  patriotism,  have  already  been  trans- 
lated to  a  brighter  world,  —  to  the  abodes  of  more  than  mortal 
freedom  !  Other  millions  have  arisen,  to  receive  from  their  parents 
and  benefactors  the  inestimable  recompense  of  their  achievements. 
A  large  proportion  of  the  audience  whose  benevolence  is  at  this 
moment  listening  to  the  speaker  of  the  day,  like  him,  were  at  that 
period  too  little  advanced  beyond  the  threshold  of  life  to  partake  of 
the  divine  enthusiasm  which  inspired  the  American  bosom,  which 
prompted  her  voice  to  proclaim  defiance  to  the  thunders  of  Bri- 
tain, which  consecrated  the  banners  of  her  armies,  and,  finally, 
erected  the  holy  temple  of  American  liberty  over  the  tomb  of 
departed  tyranny.  It  is  from  those  who  have  already  passed  the 
meridian  of  life,  —  it  is  from  you,  ye  venerable  assertors  of  the 
rights  of  mankind,  —  that  we  are  to  be  informed  what  were  the 
feelings  which  swayed  within  your  breasts,  and  impelled  you  to 
action,  when,  like  the  stripling  of  Israel,  with  scarce  a  weapon  to 
attack,  and  without  a  shield  for  your  defence,  you  met,  and,  undis- 
mayed, engaged  with  the  gigantic  greatness  of  the  British  power. 
Untutored  in  the  disgraceful  science  of  human  butchery,  —  desti- 
tute of  the  fatal  materials  which  the  ingenuity  of  man  has  com- 
bined to  sharpen  the  scythe  of  death,  —  unsupported  by  the  arm 
of  any  friendly  alliance,  and  unfortified  against  the  powerful 
assaults  of  an  unrelenting  enemy,  —  you  did  not  hesitate  at  that 
moment,  when  your  coasts  were  invaded  by  a  numerous  and  vet- 
eran arm}-,  to  pronounce  the  sentence  of  eternal  separation  from 
Britain,  and  to  throw  the  gauntlet  at  a  power  the  terror  of  whose 
recent  triumphs  was  almost  coextensive  with  the  earth.  The 
interested  and  selfish  propensities,  which  in  times  of  prosperous 
tranquillity  have  such  powerful  dominion  over  the  heart,  were  all 
expelled ;  and,  in  their  stead,  the  public  virtues,  the  spirit  of  per- 
sonal devotion  to  the  common  cause,  a  contempt  of  every  danger  in 
comparison  with  the  subserviency  of  the  country,  had  an  unlimited 
27* 


318 


SPECIMENS  OP 


control.  The  passion  for  the  public  had  absorbed  all  the  rest,  aa 
the  glorious  luminary  of  the  heaven  extinguishes,  in  a  flood  of 
refulgence,  the.  twinkling  splendor  of  every  inferior  planet.  Those 
of  you,  my  countrymen,  who  were  actors  in  those  interesting  scenes, 
will  best  know  how  feeble  and  impotent  is  the  language  of  this 
description  to  express  the  impassioned  emotions  of  the  soul  with 
which  you  were  then  agitated ;  yet  it  were  injustice  to  conclude 
from  thence,  or  from  the  greater  prevalence  of  private  and  personal 
motives  in  these  days  of  calm  serenity,  that  your  sons  have  degen- 
erated from  the  virtues  of  their  fathers.  Let  it  rather  be  a  sub- 
ject of  pleasing  reflection  to  you,  that  the  generous  and  disinter- 
ested energies  which  you  were  summoned  to  display  are  permitted, 
by  the  bountiful  indulgence  of  Heaven,  to  remain  latent  in  the 
bosoms  of  your  children.  From  the  present  prosperous  appearance 
of  our  public  affairs,  we  may  admit  a  rational  hope  that  our  coun- 
try will  have  no  occasion  to  require  of  us  those  extraordinary  and 
heroic  exertions  which  it  was  your  fortune  to  exhibit.  But,  from 
the  common  versatility  of  all  human  destiny,  should  the  prospect 
hereafter  darken,  and  the  clouds  of  public  misfortune  thicken  to  a 
tempest,  —  should  the  voice  of  our  country's  calamity  ever  call  us 
to  her  relief,  —  we  swear,  by  the  precious  memory  of  the  sages  who 
toiled  and  of  the  heroes  who  bled  in  her  defence,  that  we  will  prove 
ourselves  not  unworthy  of  the  prize  which  they  so  dearly  pur- 
chased, —  that  we  will  act  as  the  faithful  disciples  of  those  who 
so  magnanimously  taught  us  the  instructive  lesson  of  republican 
virtue ! 


AMERICA .  —  H.  S.  Legari. 

What  were  the  victories  of  Pompey  to  the  united  achievements 
of  our  Washingtons  and  Montgomerys  and  Greens,  our  Frank- 
lins and  Jeffersons  and  Adams'  and  Laurens',  —  of  the  senate  of 
sages  whose  wisdom  conducted,  of  the  band  of  warriors  whose 
valor  accomplished,  of  the  "  noble  army  of  martyrs  "  whose  blood 
sealed  and  consecrated,  the  Revolution  of  '76  ?  What  were  the 
events  of  a  few  campaigns,  however  brilliant  and  saccessful,  in  the 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE.  319 

wars  of  Italy,  or  Spain,  or  Pontus,  to  by  far  the  greatest  era  — . 
excepting,  perhaps,  the  Reformation  —  that  has  occurred  in  the 
political  history  of  modern  times,  —  to  an  era  that  has  fixed  forever 
the  destinies  of  a  whole  quarter  of  the  globe,  with  the  numbers 
without  number  that  are  soon  to  inhabit  it,  and  has  already  had, 
as  it  will  probably  continue  to  have,  a  visible  influence  upon  the 
condition  of  society  in  all  the  rest  ?  Nay,  what  is  there,  even  in 
the  most  illustrious  series  of  victories  and  conquests,  that  can  justly 
be  considered  as  affording,  to  a  mind  that  dares  to  make  a  philo- 
sophic estimate  of  human  affairs,  a  nobler  and  more  interesting 
subject  of  contemplation  and  discourse  than  the  causes  which  led 
to  the  foundation  of  this  mighty  empire  ;  than  the  wonderful  and 
almost  incredible  history  of  what  it  has  since  done  and  is  already 
grown  to  ;  than  the  scene  of  unmingled  prosperity  and  happiness 
that  is  opening  and  spreading  all  around  us ;  than  the  prospect, 
as  dazzling  as  it  is  vast,  that  lies  before  us,  the  uncircumscribed 
career  of  aggrandizement  and  improvement  which  we  are  beginning 
to  run  under  such  happy  auspices,  and  with  the  advantage  of  hav- 
ing started  at  a  point  where  it  were  well  for  the  species  had  it 
been  the  lot  of  many  nations  even  to  have  ended  theirs ! 

It  is  true,  we  shall  not  boast  that  the  pomp  of  triumph  has  three 
hundred  times  ascended  the  steps  of  our  capitol,  or  that  the  national 
temple  upon  its  brow  blazes  in  the  spoils  of  a  thousand  cities. 
True,  we  do  not  send  forth  our  praetors  to  plunder  and  devastate 
the  most  fertile  and  beautiful  portions  of  the  earth,  in  order  that  a 
haughty  aristocracy  may  be  enriched  with  booty,  or  a  worthless 
populace  be  supplied  with  bread ;  nor,  in  every  region  under  the 
sun,  from  the  foot  of  the  Grampian  hills  to  the  land  of  frankin- 
cense and  myrrh,  is  the  spirit  of  man  broken  and  debased  by  us 
beneath  the  iron  yoke  of  a  military  domination.  No!  our  triumphs 
are  the  triumphs  of  reason,  of  happiness,  of  human  nature.  Our 
rejoicings  are  greeted  with  the  most  cordial  sympathy  of  the  cos- 
mopolite and  the  philanthropist ;  and  the  good  and  the  wise  all 
round  the  globe  give  us  back  the  echo  of  our  acclamations.  It  is  the 
singular  fortune,  or,  I  should  rather  say,  it  is  the  proud  distinction 
of  Americans,  that,  in  the  race  of  moral  improvement  which  society 


320 


SPECIMENS  OF 


has  been  everywhere  running  for  some  centuries  past,  we  have  out- 
stripped every  competitor,  and  have  carried  our  institutions,  in 
the  sober  certainty  of  waking  bliss,  to  a  higher  pitch  of  perfection 
than  ever  warmed  the  dreams  of  enthusiasm  or  the  speculations  of 
the  theorist.    It  is  that  a  whole  continent  has  been  set  apart,  as  if 
it  were  holy  ground,  for  the  cultivation  of  pure  truth ;  for  the  pur- 
suit  of  happiness  upon  rational  principles,  and  in  the  way  that  is 
most  agreeable  to  nature  ;  for  the  development  of  all  the  sensibili- 
ties and  capacities  and  powers  of  the  human  mind,  without  any 
artificial  restraint  or  bias,  in  the  broad  daylight  of  modern  science 
and  political  liberty.    It  is,  that  over  the  whole  extent  of  this  (j 
gigantic  empire,  —  stretching,  as  it  does,  from  the  St.  Croix  to  the 
Sabine,  and  from  the  waters  of  the  Atlantic  to  those  of  the  Pacific, 
—  wherever  man  is  found  he  is  seen  to  walk  abroad  in  all  the  dig- 
aity  of  his  nature,  with  none  to  intimidate,  or  to  insult,  or  to  \ 
oppress  him,  with  no  superior  upon  this  earth  that  does  not  deserve  \ 
to  be  so, — and  that,  in  the  proud  consciousness  of  his  privileges,  J 
his  soul  is  filled  with  the  most  noble  apprehensions,  and  his  aspira-  - 
tions  lifted  up  to  the  most  exalted  objects,  and  his  efforts  animated 
and  encouraged  in  the  pursuit  of  whatever  has  a  tendency  to  bless 
and  adorn  his  existence  ! 


EARLY  ACHIEVEMENTS  OF  AMERICANS.  —  J.  L.  Austin. 

What  country,  my  friends,  can  produce  so  many  events,  in  the 
course  of  a  few  years,  as  must  ever  distinguish  the  American  page,  1 
—  a  young  continent,  contending  with  a  nation  whose  establishment 
had  been  for  ages,  and  whose  armies  had  conquered  the  powers  of  I 
the  world  ?    What  spirit,  short  of  a  heavenly  enthusiasm,  could 
have  animated  these  infant  colonies,  boldly  to  renounce  the  arbi-  r 
trary  mandates  of  a  British  parliament,  and,  instead  of  fawning 
like  suppliants,  to  arm  themselves  for  their  common  defence  ?  You 
dared  to  appeal  to  that  God  who  first  planted  the  principles  of  J 
natural  freedom  in  the  human  breast,  —  principles  repeatedly 
impressed  on  our  infant  minds  by  our  great  and  glorious  ancestors ; 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


321 


nd  may  yonder  sun  be  shorn  of  its  beams,  ere  their  descendants 
brget  the  heavenly  admonitions ! 

When  I  behold  so  many  worthy  patriots,  who,  during  the  late 
lorious  struggle,  have  shone  conspicuous  in  the  cabinet  and  in  the 
eld,  —  when  I  read  in  each  smiling  face  and  placid  eye  the  happy 
ecasion  for  joy  and  gratulation,  —  the  transporting  subject  fires 
ly  bosom,  and,  with  emotions  of  pleasure,  I  congratulate  my  coun- 
*y  on  the  return  of  this  anniversary.  Hail,  auspicious  day  !  an 
ra  in  the  American  annals  to  be  ever  remembered  with  joy,  while, 
>  a  sovereign  and  independent  nation,  these  United  States  can 
aintain  with  honor  and  applause  the  character  they  have  so  glo- 
ously  acquired !  How  shall  we  maintain,  as  a  nation,  our  respect- 
)ility,  should  be  the  grand  subject  of  inquiry.  This  is  the  object 
-  which  we  must  attend ;  for  the  moment  America  sullies  her 
ime,  by  forfeiting  her  honor,  the  fame  she  has  acquired  from  the 
:roism  of  her  sons,  and  the  virtues  she  has  displayed  in  the  midst 

her  distress,  will  only  serve,  like  a  train  of  mourners,  to  attend 
e  funeral  of  her  glory.    But,  by  a  due  cultivation  of  manners,  a 

m  adherence  to  the  faith  we  have  pledged,  an  union  in  council, 
refinement  in  sentiment,  a  liberality  and  benevolence  of  conduct, 

i  shall  render  ourselves  happy  at  home  and  respectable  abroad ; 
i  r  constellation  will  brighten  in  the  political  hemisphere,  and  the 
fiance  of  our  stars  sparkle  with  increasing  lustre ! 


ASSACHUSETTS  MEN  IN"  THE  REVOLUTION.  — R.  C.  Winthrop. 

Where  should  an  American  desire  to  be,  on  a  Fourth  of  July, 
t  j  in  Faneuil  Hall  ?  Where  else  can  he  breathe  the  very  natal 
£  of  independence  ?  Where  else  can  he  quench  his  thirst  at  the 
vy  fountain-head  of  American  liberty?  Whatever  part  Massa- 
c  isetts  may  have  sustained  in  the  great  controversies  which  have 
a  tated  the  country  in  later  years,  —  and  I  am  not  ready  to  admit 
t  ,t  it  has  been  an  unworthy  or  an  inferior  one,  —  no  one  will 
y  'ture  to  suggest  that  she  played  anything  less  than  the  first  part 
i  that  great  drama  whose  opening  scenes  we  are  assembled  to 


322 


SPECIMENS  OF 


commemorate.  Of  how  many  of  the  great  events  of  the  Revolu 
tion  was  not  Massachusetts  the  stage !  How  many  of  them  were 
enacted  almost  within  eye-shot  and  ear-shot  of  the  spot  on  which 
we  stand!  The  heights  which  overhang  us  on  the  right  hant 
and  on  the  left,  the  plains  which  lie  behind  them,  the  harbor  a 
our  feet,  the  hall  in  which  we  are  assembled,  State-street,  the 
Old  State-house,  the  Old  South,  —  where  else  was  engendered 
that  noble  spirit,  that  fearless  purpose,  that  unconquerable  resolve 
of  which  the  Declaration  of  Independence  was,  after  all,  only  tht 
mere  formal  and  ceremonious  proclamation?  We  sometimes  talk 
playfully  about  the  walls  having  ears.  0,  sir,  if  these  walls  coulc 
have  had  ears  three-quarters  of  a  century  ago,  and  if  they  coult 
find  a  tongue  now,  what  a  tale  would  they  not  unfold  of  the  tnw 
rise  and  progress  of  American  liberty ! 

Let  me  not  seem  to  disparage  the  particular  act  which  we  mee 
to  celebrate,  or  to  be  disposed  to  deck  these  hallowed  columns  witl 
laurels  stripped  from  other  theatres.  There  are  enough  for  all 
The  declaration  itself  was  a  bold  and  noble  act.  Honor  to  th 
pen  which  drafted  it !  Honor  to  the  tongue  which  advocated  it 
Honor  to  the  hands  which  signed  it !  Honor  to  the  brave  heart 
and  gallant  arms  which  maintained  and  vindicated  it !  Honor  t 
the  five  Massachusetts  delegates  in  the  Congress  of  that  day,  wh 
were  second  to  none  in  that  illustrious  body  for  ability,  eloquenc 
and  patriotism,  —  Hancock,  under  whose  sole  signature  it  wa 
originally  published,  the  two  Adamses,  Elbridge  Gerry,  and  Robei 
Treat  Paine  !    Honor  to  them  all ! 

Indeed,  the  more  one  reflects  on  the  real  character  of  that  ac 
the  more  full  of  noble  courage  it  appears.  Remember,  sir,  th. 
there  was  no  divided  responsibility  in  that  Congress.  There  wei 
no  checks  and  balances  in  our  confederated  system.  There  was  n 
concurrent  vote  of  a  second  branch,  there  was  no  executive  signs 
ture,  or  executive  veto,  to  fall  back  upon.  Fifty-six  delegate 
chosen  long  before  there  was  any  distinct  contemplation  of  such 
course,  sitting  in  a  single  chamber,  with  closed  doors,  in  the  capit 
of  a  colony  by  no  means  the  most  ripe  for  such  a  movement,  ai 
found  —  doing  what  ?    Taking  the  tremendous  responsibility  c 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


323 


adopting  a  resolution,  and  promulgating  an  instrument,  which  may 
not  only  subject  their  own  property  to  confiscation,  and  their  own 
necks  to  the  halter,  but  which  must  involve  their  constituents  and 
their  country  in  a  war  for  existence,  and  of  incalculable  duration, 
with  the  most  powerful  nation  on  the  face  of  the  earth.  There 
was  no  example  for  such  a  deed.  There  was  no  precedent  on  file 
for  such  a  declaration.  And  who  will  say  that,  to  put  one's  name 
to  such  an  instrument,  under  such  circumstances,  in  the  clear, 
bold,  unmistakable  characters  of  John  Hancock,  was  an  exhibition 
of  a  courage  less  heroic  than  that  which  has  rendered  many  a 
name  immortal  on  the  field  of  battle  ? 

Still,  sir,  the  way  had  been  opened  for  such  a  proceeding  ;  the 
popular  heart  had  been  prepared  for  it.  As  was  well  said  by  John 
Adams  at  the  time,  "  the  question  was  not  whether  by  a  declara- 
tion of  independence  we  should  make  ourselves  what  we  are  not, 
but  whether  we  should  declare  a  fact  which  already  exists."  And 
how  did  that  fact  exist  ?  How  had  it  been  brought  about  ?  By 
what  events,  but  those  which  had  occurred  at  Concord  and  Lexing- 
ton, at  Bunker  Hill,  and  in  Faneuil  Hall  ?  By  what  men,  but  by 
our  own  Otis,  and  Quincy,  and  Hancock,  and  Hawley,  and  Bow- 
doin,  and  Samuel  Adams,  and  John  Adams,  and  Paul  Revere,  and 
Prescott,  and  Warren,  and  all  that  glorious  company  of  Massachu- 
setts patriots,  whose  names  will  live  forever  ? 

I  would  associate  with  all  the  homage  which  we  render  to  the 
memory  of  the  Revolutionary  patriots  and  heroes  of  our  own  state 
the  Hamiltons  and  Jays,  the  Morrises  and  Franklins,  the  Laurenses 
and  Marions,  the  Henrys  and  Jeffersons,  and,  above  all,  the  unap- 
proached  and  unapproachable  Washington,  of  other  states.  I 
would  think  of  our  country,  to-day  and  always,  as  one  in  the  glo- 
ries of  the  past,  one  in  the  grandeur  of  the  present,  and  one,  undi- 
vided and  indivisible,  in  the  destinies  of  the  future.  But,  at  a 
moment  when  there  seems  to  be  a  willingness  in  some  quarters  to 
disparage  our  ancient  commonwealth,  and  almost  to  rule  her  out 
from  the  catalogue  of  patriot  states,  I  have  not  been  unwilling  to 
revive  some  recollections  of  our  local  history,  and  of  the  part  which 
ihe  has  played  in  other  days.    I  could  hardly  help  feeling  that,  if 


324 


SPECIMENS  OF 


we  were  to  hold  our  peace,  the  very  stones  would  cry  out.  In  all 
that  relates  to  liberty  and  union,  Massachusetts,  I  am  persuaded, 
is  to-day  just  what  she  was  seventy-five  years  ago.  There  is  no 
variableness  or  shadow  of  turning  in  her  devotion  to  the  great 
principles  of  her  Revolutionary  fathers*  nor  will  she  ever,  as  I 
believe,  be  found  wanting  to  any  just  obligation  to  her  sister  states. 

It  is  for  us  to  say  whether  we  will  be  true  to  those  great  ele- 
ments of  free  government,  to  those  noble  principles  of  liberty  and 
law,  and  to  that  blessed  compact  of  union,  which  our  fathers  have 
enshrined  in  the  constitution  of  the  United  States.  If  we  are  but 
faithful  to  that  great  bond  and  bulwark  of  our  Union,  the  con- 
stitution, critical  periods  may  come  and  go,  there  may  be  grand 
climacterics  and  petty  crises,  stars  may  rise  and  set,  the  great  and 
the  good  may  fall  on  our  right  hand  and  our  left,  —  but  the  coun- 
try, the  country,  will  survive  them  all,  will  survive  us  all,  and  will 
stand  before  the  world  as  an  imperishable  monument  of  the  patri- 
otism of  the  sons,  as  well  as  of  the  wisdom  and  virtue  of  their 
sires  ! 


PATRIOTISM.  —  H.  Giles. 

The  patriotism  which  is  worthy  of  this  country,  worthy  of  its 
advantages,  worthy  of  its  duties  to  the  world,  is  a  high  and  enlight- 
ened patriotism,  —  a  patriotism  of  loyal  devotion,  but  also  of  en- 
larged philanthropy.  If  man  be  only  true,  all  here  beside  is  full 
of  inspiration  and  full  of  promise ;  if  man  will  be  but  faithful  to 
his  opportunities,  all  around  him  here  is  strong  in  noble  energies. 
Everything  here  tends  to  dilate  the  heart,  —  to  send  it  upward  in 
gratitude  to  a  fatherly  God,  to  send  it  outward  in  kindness  to  the 
brotherhood  of  man.  The  sky  itself  takes  dimensions  of  grandeur 
fitted  to  the  glorious  scope  of  empire  which  it  overhangs.  It  is 
high,  deep,  broad,  lofty,  and  should  upraise  the  freeman's  soul 
whose  step  is  on  the  freeman's  earth.  Nowhere  is  the  calm  more 
divinely  fair ;  nowhere  is  the  storm  more  awfully  sublime ;  nowhere 
does  the  sun  shine  forth  with  a  more  peerless  majesty ;  nowhere 
do  the  stars  beam  down  with  a  more  holy  lustre.    The  atmosphere 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


325 


engenders  no  deadly  plagues ;  health  lives  in  the  breeze,  and  plenty 
comes  teeming  from  the  soil.  Broad  dominions,  to  be  measured  in 
leagues  only  by  a  scale  of  hundreds,  snatch  imagination  from  every 
belittling  influence,  and  carry  it  out  from  narrow  thoughts  to  an 
ennobling  excursiveness.  Then  there  are  ocean  lakes,  in  which 
kingdoms  might  be  buried,  and  leave  on  the  surface  no  ripple  of 
their  grave ;  rivers,  that  sweep  over  half  a  world ;  cataracts,  eter- 
nal and  resistless,  that  hymn  forever  the  omnipotence  which  they 
resemble ;  mountains,  that  stretch  into  the  upper  light,  and  mock, 
from  their  snow-crowned  pinnacles,  the  clouds  and  the  thunders 
that  crash  below  them. 

All  these  are  your  country's,  —  but  your  country  is  God's.  It 
is  God  who  has  given  you  this  country ;  it  is  God  who  has  enriched 
it  with  these  grand  objects,  and  through  these  grand  objects  it  is 
God  who  speaks.  He  speaks  in  the  chorus  of  your  woods ;  in  the 
tempests  of  your  valleys ;  in  the  ceaseless  sobbings  of  your  lakes  and 
oceans ;  in  the  vague,  low  murmurs  of  forest  and  of  prairie  ;  in  the 
mighty  bass  of  waterfalls,  in  the  silver  melody  of  streams ;  —  and 
the  voice  that  he  sends  out  from  them  is  a  voice  for  patriotism,  but 
it  is  also  a  voice  for  equity  and  a  voice  for  goodness.  Who  can  look 
through  the  huge  firmament;  who  can  gaze  upon  the  golden  fires 
with  which  it  is  studded ;  who  can  float  away  on  the  wings  of  the 
spirit  through  the  infinity  of  stars ;  who  can  watch  the  roll  of  the 
torrent,  pouring  out  a  sea  in  every  gush  —  a  sea  of  awful  beauty  ; 
who  can  thus  put  his  soul  into  communion  with  the  universe,  and 
not  be  enlarged  by  the  communion  ?  who  can  really  put  his  soul 
into  communion  with  the  universe,  and  not  be  delivered  from  the 
slavery  of  prejudice  into  the  glorious  liberty  of  humanity  and  of 
God? 

The  measure  of  your  duty  is  the  greatness  of  your  advantages, 
and  the  greatness  of  your  advantages  is  the  standard  to  which  you 
will  bo  subjected  in  the  judgment  of  Heaven  and  the  judgment  of 
history.  You  are  set  for  the  hope  or  for  the  disappointment  of 
the  world.  With  such  a  mighty  country,  with  such  inestimable 
privileges,  with  such  means  of  intelligence,  virtue  and  happiness, 
with  such  means  of  increasing  and  dispensing  them,  so  young  and 
28 


326 


SPECIMENS  0* 


yet  so  strong,  so  late  and  yet  so  rich  among  the  nations,  there 
is  room  to  look  for  good  interminably  to  future  generations,  which 
the  one  departing  shall  leave  more  abundant  for  the  one  that  comes. 
In  order  that  such  anticipations  be  not  empty  dreams,  in  order 
that  they  be  not.  promises  to  change  into  mockery,  vanity  and  grief, 
it  should  be  the  labor  of  a  genuine  and  noble  patriotism  to  raise 
the  life  of  the  nation  to  the  level  of  its  privileges,  to  harmonize  its 
general  practice  with  its  abstract  principles,  to  reduce  to  actual 
facts  the  ideals  of  its  institutions,  to  elevate  instruction  into 
knowledge,  to  deepen  knowledge  into  wisdom,  to  render  knowledge 
and  wisdom  complete  in  righteousness,  and  to  make  the  love  of 
country  perfect  in  the  love  of  man. 


GROWTH  OF  AMERICA.  — II  8.  Legard.  ' 

One  of  the  most  fortunate  and  striking  peculiarities  of  the  Rev- 
olution is  that  it  occurred  in  a  New  World.  The  importance  that 
ought  to  be  attached  to  this  circumstance  will  be  obvious  to  every 
one  who  will  reflect  for  a  moment  upon  the  miracles  which  are 
exhibiting  in  the  settlement  of  this  country  and  the  increase  of  its 
population.  Behold  how  the  pomocrium  of  the  republic  advances 
in  the  wilderness  of  the  West !  See  how  empires  are  starting  up 
into  being,  in  periods  of  time  shorter  even  than  the  interval  be- 
tween infancy  and  manhood  in  the  span  allotted  to  the  individuals 
that  compose  them  !  Contemplate  the  peaceful  triumphs  of  indus- 
try, the  rapid  progress  of  cultivation,  the  diffusion  of  knowledge, 
the  growth  of  populous  cities,  with  all  the  arts  that  embellish  life 
and  soften  while  they  exalt  the  character  of  man,  and  think  of 
the  countless  multitudes  that  are  springing  up  to  inherit  these 
blessings!  The  three  millions  by  whom  our  independence  was 
achieved,  less  than  half  a  century  ago,  are  already  grown  to  ten, 
which,  in  the  course  of  another  half-century,  will  have  swelled  up 
to  fifty,  and  so  on,  with  a  continually  accelerated  progress,  until, 
at  no  distant  day,  the  language  of  Milton  shall  be  spoken  from 
shore  to  shore,  over  the  vastest  portion  of  the  earth's  surface  that 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


327 


was  ever  inhabited  by  a  race  worthy  of  speaking  a  language  conse- 
crated to  liberty. 

Now,  to  feel  how  deep  an  interest  this  circumstance  is  fitted  to 
throw  into  the  story  of  the  Revolution,  let  us  imagine  a  spectator, 
or  let  us  rather  suppose  an  actor,  in  that  greatest  and  proudest  of 
days,  to  have  turned  his  thoughts  upon  the  future  which  we  see 
present  and  realized.  Would  he  not,  think  ye,  have  trembled  at 
the  awful  responsibility  of  his  situation?  Would  he  not  have 
been  overwhelmed  with  the  unbounded  anticipation  ?  It  depends 
upon  his  courage  and  conduct,  and  upon  the  strength  of  his  right 
arm,  whether,  not  his  descendants  only,  not  some  small  tract  of 
country  about  his  fireside,  not  Massachusetts  alone,  —  no,  nor  all 
that  shall  inherit  it  in  the  ages  that  are  to  come,  —  shall  be  gov- 
erned by  satraps  and  viceroys,  or  as  reason  and  nature  dictate  that 
they  should  be ;  but  whether  a  republic,  embracing  upwards  of 
twenty  distinct  and  great  empires,  shall  exist  or  not,  —  whether  a 
host,  worthy  to  combat  and  to  conquer  with  Jackson,  shall  issue 
from  the  yet  unviolated  forests  of  Kentucky  and  Tennessee,  to 
spurn  from  New  Orleans  the  very  foe  whose  vengeance  he  now 
dares,  for  the  first  time,  to  encounter  in  the  field,  when  that  foe 
shall  be  crowned  with  yet  prouder  laurels,  and  shall  come  in  more 
terrible  might,  —  whether  the  banks  of  the  great  lakes  shall  echo 
to  the  accents  of  liberty,  and  the  Missouri  and  the  Mississippi  roll 
through  the  inheritance  of  freemen  ! 


IMPORTANCE  OF  EDUCATION.  —  R.  C.  Winthrop. 

We  have  been  accustomed  to  regard  a  free-school  system  as  the 
chief  corner-stone  of  our  republic,  and  popular  education  as  the 
only  safe  and  stable  basis  for  popular  liberty.  So  thought  our 
fathers  before  us ;  and  the  principle  may  be  found  interwoven  in  a 
thousand  forms  into  the  very  thread  and  texture  of  our  political 
institutions.  Education  —  religious  and  civil,  the  education  of  the 
sanctuary  and  the  school-house  —  was,  we  all  know,  from  the  first 
establishment  of  these  colonies,  a  matter  in  regard  to  which  all 


328 


SPECIMENS  OP 


property  was  held  in  common,  and  every  man  bound  to  contribute 
to  the  necessities  of  every  other  man ;  as  much  so  as  personal  pro- 
tection, public  justice,  or  any  other  of  the  more  obvious  duties  of 
government,  or  rights  of  the  governed. 

Children  should  be  educated  as  those  by  whom  the  destinies  of 
the  nation  are  one  day  to  be  wielded,  and  free  schools  cherished  as 
places  in  which  those  destinies  are  even  now  to  be  woven.  It  has 
been  recorded  as  a  saying  of  Mahomet  that  "  the  ink  of  the  scholar 
and  the  blood  of  the  martyr  are  equal."  It  would  be  difficult  to 
bring  an  American  of  this  generation,  especially  if  he  happened  to 
be  standing,  as  we  now  are,  at  the  foot  of  Bunker  Hilljto  acknowl- 
edge that  there  could  be  anything  equal  —  equal  in  its  claim  upon 
his  regard  and  reverence,  or  equal  in  its  influence  upon  our  na- 
tional welfare  and  freedom  —  to  the  blood  of  our  Revolutionary 
martyrs.  But  in  this  we  must  all  agree,  that  nothing  but  the  ink 
of  the  scholar  can  preserve  what  the  blood  of  the  martyr  has  pur- 
chased. The  experiment  of  free  government  is  not  one  which  can 
be  tried  once  for  all.  Every  generation  must  try  it  for  itself. 
Our  fathers  tried  it,  and  were  gloriously  successful.  We  are  now 
engaged  in  the  trial ;  and,  thank  God,  we  have  not  yet  failed.  But 
neither  our  success,  nor  that  of  our  fathers,  can  afford  anything 
but  example  and  encouragement  to  those  who  are  to  try  it  next. 
As  each  new  generation  starts  up  to  the  reponsibilities  of  manhood, 
there  is,  as  it  were,  a  new  launch  of  Liberty,  and  its  voyage  of 
experiment  begins  afresh.  But  the  oracles  have  declared  that  its 
safety  and  success  depend  not  so  much  upon  the  conduct  of  those 
engaged  in  it  during  the  voyage,  as  upon  their  preparations  before 
they  embark.  The  winds  and  waves  must  be  propitiated  before 
the  shore  is  left,  or  wreck  and  ruin  will  await  them.  But  this 
propitiation  consists,  not  in  some  cruel  proceeding,  like  that  pre- 
scribed by  the  heathen  oracle  to  the  Grecian  fleet,  in  binding  son  or 
daughter  upon  the  pile  of  sacrifice,  and  offering  up  their  tortured 
bodies  and  agonized  souls  to  appease  an  angry  deity,  but  in  a  pro- 
cess which  is  not  more  certain  to  call  down  the  best  blessing  of 
Heaven  upon  the  enterprise,  and  to  secure  a  peaceful  and  prosper- 
ous voyage,  than  it  is  to  promote  the  truest  happiness  and  welfare 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


329 


of  those  upon  whom  it  is  performed.  Sons  and  daughters  devoted 
to  education  are  the  only  sacrifice  which  God  has  prescribed  to 
render  the  progress  of  free  government  safe  and  certain. 


SUCCESS  OF  AMERICAN  INSTITUTIONS.  —  M.  Van  Bur  en. 

The  capacity  of  the  people  for  self-government,  and  their  wil- 
lingness, from  a  high  sense  of  duty,  and  without  those  exhibitions 
of  coercive  power  so  generally  employed  in  other  countries,  to  sub- 
mit to  all  needful  restraints  and  exactions  of  the  municipal  law, 
have  also  been  favorably  exemplified  in  the  history  of  the  Ameri- 
can states.  Occasionally,  it  is  true,  the  ardor  of  public  sentiment, 
outrunning  the  regular  process  of  the  judicial  tribunals,  or  seeking 
to  reach  cases  not  denounced  as  criminal  by  the  existing  law,  has 
displayed  itself  in  a  manner  calculated  to  give  pain  to  the  friends 
of  free  government,  and  to  encourage  the  hopes  of  those  who  wish 
for  its  overthrow.  These  occurrences,  however,  have  been  far  less 
frequent  in  our  country  than  in  any  other  of  equal  population  on 
the  globe ;  and,  with  the  diffusion  of  intelligence,  it  may  be  hoped 
that  they  will  constantly  diminish  in  frequency  and  violence.  The 
generous  patriotism  and  sound  common  sense  of  the  great  mass  of 
our  fellow-citizens  will  assuredly,  in  time,  produce  this  result ;  for, 
as  every  assumption  of  illegal  power  not  only  wounds  the  majesty 
of  the  law,  but  furnishes  a  pretext  for  abridging  the  liberties  of 
the  people,  the  latter  has  the  most  direct  and  permanent  interest 
in  preserving  the  great  landmarks  of  social  order,  and  maintaining 
on  all  occasions  the  inviolability  of  those  constitutional  and  legal 
provisions  which  they  themselves  have  made. 

In  a  supposed  unfitness  of  our  institutions  for  those  hostile  emer- 
gencies which  no  country  can  always  avoid,  their  friends  found  a 
fruitful  source  of  apprehension,  their  enemies  of  hope.  While 
they  foresaw  less  promptness  of  action  than  in  governments  differ- 
ently formed,  they  overlooked  the  far  more  important  considera- 
tion, that  with  us  war  could  never  be  the  result  of  individual  or 
irresponsible  will,  but  must  be  a  measure  of  redress  for  injuries 
28* 


330 


SPECIMENS  OF 


sustained,  voluntarily  resorted  to  by  those  who  were  to  bear  the 
necessary  sacrifice,  and  who  would  consequently  feel  an  individual 
interest  in  the  contest,  and  whose  energy  would  be  commensurate 
with  the  difficulties  to  be  encountered.  Actual  events  have  proved 
their  error ;  the  last  war,  far  from  impairing,  gave  new  confidence 
to  our  government ;  and,  amid  recent  apprehensions  of  a  similar 
conflict,  we  saw  that  the  energies  of  our  country  would  not  be  want- 
ing in  ample  season  to  vindicate  its  rights.  We  may  not  possess, 
as  we  should  not  desire  to  possess,  the  extended  and  ever-ready 
military  organization  of  other  nations ;  we  may  occasionally  suffer 
in  the  outset  for  the  want  of  it ;  but  among  ourselves  all  doubt 
upon  this  great  point  has  ceased,  while  a  salutary  experience  will 
prevent  a  contrary  opinion  from  inviting  aggression  from  abroad. 

Certain  danger  was  foretold  from  the  extension  of  our  territory, 
the  multiplication  of  states,  and  the  increase  of  population.  Our 
system  was  supposed  to  be  adapted  only  to  boundaries  compar- 
atively narrow.  These  have  been  widened  beyond  conjecture ;  the 
members  of  our  confederacy  are  already  doubled,  and  the  num- 
bers of  our  people  are  incredibly  augmented.  The  alleged  causes 
of  danger  have  long  surpassed  anticipation,  but  none  of  the  conse- 
quences have  been  followed.  The  power  and  influence  of  the  repub- 
lic have  risen  to  a  height  obvious  to  all  mankind ;  respect  for  its 
authority  was  not  more  apparent  at  its  ancient  than  it  is  at  its 
present  limits ;  new  and  inexhaustible  sources  of  general  prosperity 
have  been  opened ;  the  effects  of  distance  have  been  averted  by 
the  inventive  genius  of  our  people,  developed  and  fostered  by  the 
spirit  of  our  institutions ;  and  the  enlarged  variety  and  amount  of 
interests,  productions  and  pursuits,  have  strengthened  the  chain  of 
mutual  dependence,  and  formed  a  circle  of  mutual  benefits  too 
apparent  ever  to  be  overlooked. 

In  justly  balancing  the  powers  of  the  federal  and  state  authori- 
ties, difficulties  nearly  insurmountable  arose  at  the  outset,  and  sub- 
sequent collisions  were  deemed  inevitable.  Amid  these,  it  was 
scarcely  believed  possible  that  a  scheme  of  government  so  complex 
in  construction  could  remain  uninjured.  From  time  to  time 
embarrassments  have  certainly  occurred ;  but  how  just  is  the  con- 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


331 


fidence  of  future  safety  imparted  by  the  knowledge  that  each  in 
succession  has  been  happily  removed !  Overlooking  partial  and 
temporary  evils  as  inseparable  from  the  practical  operations  of  all 
human  institutions,  and  looking  only  to  the  general  result,  every 
patriot  has  reason  to  be  satisfied.  While  the  federal  government 
has  successfully  performed  its  appropriate  functions  in  relation  to 
foreign  affairs  and  concerns  evidently  national,  that  of  every  state 
has  remarkably  improved  in  protecting  and  developing  local  inter- 
ests and  individual  w elfare ;  and  if  the  vibrations  of  authority 
have  occasionally  tended  too  much  towards  one  or  the  other,  it  is 
unquestionably  certain  that  the  ultimate  operation  of  the  entire 
system  has  been  to  strengthen  all  the  existing  institutions,  and  to 
elevate  our  whole  country  in  prosperity  and  renown ! 


ADAMS  AND  JEFFERSON.  —  D.  Webster. 

Adams  and  Jefferson  are  no  more.  On  our  fiftieth  anniver- 
sary, the  great  day  of  national  jubilee,  in  the  very  hour  of  public 
rejoicing,  in  the  midst  of  echoing  and  reechoing  voices  of  thanks- 
giving, while  their  own  names  were  on  all  tongues,  they  took  their 
flight,  together,  to  the  world  of  spirits.  Neither  of  these  great 
men  could  have  died  at  any  time  without  leaving  an  immense  void 
in  our  American  society.  They  have  been  so  intimately,  and  for 
so  long  a  time,  blended  with  the  history  of  the  country,  and 
especially  so  united,  in  our  thoughts  and  recollections,  with  the 
events  of  the  Revolution,  that  the  death  of  either  would  have 
touched  the  strings  of  public  sympathy.  -"We  should  have  felt  that 
one  great  link,  connecting  us  with  former  times,  was  broken ;  that 
we  had  lost  something  more,  as  it  were,  of  the  presence  of  the 
Revolution  itself,  and  of  the  act  of  independence ;  and  were  driven 
on,  by  another  great  remove,  from  the  days  of  our  country's  early 
distinction,  to  meet  posterity,  and  to  mix  with  the  future.  Like 
the  mariner,  whom  the  ocean  and  the  winds  carry  along,  till  he 
sees  the  stars  which  have  directed  his  course  and  lighted  his 
pathless  way  descend,  one  by  one,  beneath  the  rising  horizon,  we 


332 


SPECIMENS  OF 


should  have  felt  that  the  stream  of  time  had  borne  us  onward,  till 
another  great  luminary,  whose  light  had  cheered  us,  and  whose 
guidance  we  had  followed,  had  sunk  away  from  our  sight. 

Adams  and  Jefferson,  I  have  said,  are  no  more.  As  human 
beings,  indeed,  they  are  no  more.  They  are  no  more,  as  in  1776, 
bold  and  fearless  advocates  of  independence  ;  no  more,  as  on  sub- 
sequent periods,  the  head  of  the  government ;  no  more,  as  we  have 
recently  seen  them,  aged  and  venerable  objects  of  admiration  and 
regard.  They  are  no  more.  They  are  dead.  But  how  little  is 
there,  of  the  great  and  good,  which  can  die !  To  their  country 
they  yet  live,  and  live  forever.  They  live  in  ail  that  perpetuates 
the  remembrance  of  men  on  earth,  —  in  the  recorded  proofs  of  their 
own  great  actions,  in  the  offspring  of  their  intellect,  in  the  deep- 
engraved  lines  of  public  gratitude,  and  in  the  respect  and  homage 
of  mankind.  They  live  in  their  example,  and  they  live  emphati- 
cally, and  will  live,  in  the  influence  which  their  lives  and  efforts, 
their  principles  and  opinions,  now  exercise,  and  will  continue  to 
exercise,  on  the  affairs  of  men,  not  only  in  their  own  country,  but 
throughout  the  civilized  word.  A  superior  and  commanding  human 
intellect,  a  truly  great  man,  when  Heaven  vouchsafes  so  rare  a 
gift,  is  not  a  temporary  flame,  burning  bright  for  a  while,  and  then 
expiring,  giving  place  to  returning  darkness.  It  is  rather  a  spark 
of  fervent  heat,  as  well  as  radiant  light,  with  power  to  enkindle 
the  common  mass  of  human  mind,  so  that  when  it  glimmers  in  its 
own  decay,  and  finally  goes  out  in  death,  no  night  follows,  but  it 
leaves  the  world  all  light,  all  on  fire,  from  the  potent  contact  of  its 
own  spirit.  Bacon  died :  but  the  human  understanding,  roused, 
by  the  touch  of  his  miraculous  wand,  to  a  perception  of  the  true 
philosophy,  and  the  just  mode  of  inquiring  after  truth,  has  kept 
on  its  course  successfully  and  gloriously.  Newton  died ;  yet  the 
courses  of  the  spheres  are  still  known,  and  they  yet  move  on  in 
the  orbits  which  he  saw  and  described  for  them,  in  the  infinity  of 
space. 

We  are  not  assembled,  fellow-citizens,  as  men  overwhelmed  with 
calamity  by  the  sudden  disruption  of  the  ties  of  friendship  or 
affection,  or  as  in  despair  for  the  republic,  by  the  untimely  blight- 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


333 


ing  of  its  hopes.  Death  has  not  surprised  us  by  an  unseasonable 
blow.  We  have,  indeed,  seen  the  tomb  close ;  but  it  has  closed 
only  over  mature  years,  over  long-protracted  public  service,  over 
the  weakness  of  age,  and  over  life  itself  only  when  the  ends  of 
living  had  been  fulfilled.  These  suns,  as  they  rose  slowly  and 
steadily  amidst  clouds  and  storms  in  their  ascendant,  so  they  have 
not  rushed  from  their  meridian  to  sink  suddenly  in  the  west.  Like 
the  mildness,  the  serenity,  the  continuing  benignity,  of  a  summer's 
day,  they  have  gone  down  with  slow-descending,  grateful,  long- 
lingering  light ;  and  now  that  they  are  beyond  the  visible  margin 
of  the  world,  good  omens  cheer  us  from  "  the  bright  track  of  their 
fiery  car." 

No  men  ever  served  their  country  with  more  entire  exemption 
from  every  imputation  of  selfish  and  mercenary  motives  than  those 
to  whose  memory  we  are  paying  these  proofs  of  respect.  A  sus- 
picion of  any  disposition  to  enrich  themselves,  or  to  profit  by  their 
public  employments,  never  rested  on  either.  No  sordid  motive 
approached  them.  The  inheritance  which  they  have  left  to  their 
children  is  of  their  character  and  their  fame. 

I  will  detain  you  no  longer  by  this  faint  and  feeble  tribute  to 
the  memory  of  the  illustrious  dead.  Even  in  other  hands,  ade- 
quate justice  could  not  be  performed  within  the  limits  of  this  occa- 
sion. Their  highest,  their  best  praise,  is  your  deep  conviction  of 
their  merits,  your  affectionate  gratitude  for  their  labors  and  ser- 
vices. It  is  not  my  voice,  it  is  this  cessation  of  ordinary  pursuits, 
this  arresting  of  all  attention,  these  solemn  ceremonies,  and  this 
crowded  house,  which  speak  their  eulogy.  Their  fame,  indeed,  is 
safe.  That  is  now  treasured  up,  beyond  the  reach  of  accident. 
Although  no  sculptured  marble  should  rise  to  their  memory,  nor 
ingraved  stone  bear  record  of  their  deeds,  yet  will  their  remem- 
Drance  be  as  lasting  as  the  land  they  honored.  Marble  columns 
nay,  indeed,  moulder  into  dust,  time  may  erase  all  impress  from 
:he  crumbling  stone,  but  their  fame  remains  ;  for  with  American 
jIBErty  it  rose,  and  with  American  liberty  only  can  it  perish, 
-t  was  the  last  swelling  peal  of  yonder  choir,  "  Their  bodies  are 

IURIED  IN  PEACE,  BUT  THEIR   NAME   LIVETH  EVERMORE."     I  Catch 


334  SPECIMENS  OF 

that  solemn  song,  I  echo  that  lofty  strain  of  funeral  triumph, 

"  T IIEIR  NAME  LIVETII  EVERMORE." 

Of  the  illustrious  signers  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence 
there  now  remains  only  Charles  Carroll.  He  seems  an  aged 
oak,  standing  alone  on  the  plain,  which  time  has  spared  a  little 
longer,  after  all  his  contemporaries  have  been  levelled  with  the 
dust.  Venerable  object !  we  delight  to  gather  round  its  trunk, 
while  yet  it  stands,  and  to  dwell  beneath  its  shadow.  Sole  sur- 
vivor of  an  assembly  of  as  great  men  as  the  world  has  witnessed, 
in  a  transaction  one  of  the  most  important  that  history  records, 
what  thoughts,  what  interesting  reflections,  must  fill  his  elevated 
and  devout  soul !  If  he  dwell  on  the  past,  how  touching  its  recol- 
lections ;  if  he  survey  the  present,  how  happy,  how  joyous,  how 
full  of  the  fruition  of  that  hope  which  his  ardent  patriotism 
indulged ;  if  he  glance  at  the  future,  how  does  the  prospect  of  his 
country's  advancement  almost  bewilder  his  weakened  conception ! 
Fortunate,  distinguished  patriot !  Interesting  relic  of  the  past ! 
Let  him  know  that,  while  we  honor  the  dead,  we  do  not  forget  the 
living,  and  that  there  is  not  a  heart  here  which  does  not  fervently 
pray  that  Heaven  may  keep  him  yet  back  from  the  society  of  his 
companions. 

Let  us  not  retire  from  this  occasion  without  a  deep  and  solemn 
conviction  of  the  duties  which  have  devolved  upon  us.  This  lovely 
land,  this  glorious  liberty,  these  benign  institutions,  the  dear  pur- 
chase of  our  fathers,  are  ours ;  ours  to  enjoy,  ours  to  preserve,  ours 
to  transmit.  Generations  past,  and  generations  to  come,  hold  us 
responsible  for  this  sacred  trust.  Our  fathers,  from  behind, 
admonish  us,  with  their  anxious  paternal  voices ;  posterity  calls 
out  to  us  from  the  bosom  of  the  future ;  the  world  turns  hither  its 
solicitous  eyes  ;  —  all,  all  conjure  us  to  act  wisely  and  faithfully 
in  the  relation  which  we  sustain.  We  can  never,  indeed,  pay  the 
debt  which  is  upon  us;  but  by  virtue,  by  morality,  by  religion,  by 
the  cultivation  of  every  good  principle  and  every  good  habit,  we 
may  hope  to  enjoy  the  blessing  through  our  day,  and  to  leave  it 
unimpaired  to  our  children.  Let  us  feel  deeply  how  much  of 
what  we  are  and  of  what  we  possess  we  owe  to  this  liberty,  and 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


335 


these  institutions  of  government.  Nature  has,  indeed,  given  us  a 
soil  which  yields  bounteously  to  the  hands  of  industry ;  the  mighty 
and  fruitful  ocean  is  before  us,  and  the  skies  over  our  heads  shed 
health  and  vigor.  But  what  are  lands,  and  seas,  and  skies,  to  civ- 
ilized man,  without  society,  without  knowledge,  without  morals, 
without  religious  culture  ?  and  how  can  these  be  enjoyed,  in  all 
their  extent  and  all  their  excellence,  but  under  the  protection  of 
wise  institutions  and  a  free  government  ?  There  is  not  one  of  us, 
there  is  not  one  of  us  here  present,  who  does  not,  at  this  moment, 
and  at  every  moment,  experience,  in  his  own  condition,  and  in  the 
condition  of  those  most  near  and  dear  to  him,  the  influence  and 
the  benefits  of  this  liberty  and  these  institutions.  Let  us,  then, 
acknowledge  the  blessing ;  let  us  feel  it  deeply  and  powerfully, 
let  us  cherish  a  strong  affection  for  it,  and  resolve  to  maintain  and 
perpetuate  it.  The  blood  of  our  fathers,  let  it  not  have  been  shed 
in  vain  !  the  great  hope  of  posterity,  let  it  not  be  blasted ! 

It  cannot  be  denied,  but  by  those  who  would  dispute  against  the 
sun,  that  with  America  and  in  America  a  new  era  commences  in 
human  affairs.  This  era  is  distinguished  by  free  representative 
governments,  by  entire  religious  liberty,  by  improved  systems  of 
national  intercourse,  by  a  newly-awakened  and  an  unconquerable 
spirit  of  free  inquiry,  and  by  a  diffusion  of  knowledge  through  the 
community  such  as  has  been  before  altogether  unknown  and 
unheard  of.  America,  America,  our  country,  our  own  dear  and 
native  land,  is  inseparably  connected,  fast  bound  up,  in  fortune  and 
by  fate,  with  these  great  interests.  If  they  fall,  we  fall  with  them ; 
if  they  stand,  it  will  be  because  we  have  upholden  them.  Let  us 
contemplate,  then,  this  connection,  wThich  binds  the  prosperity  of 
others  to  our  own,  and  let  us  manfully  discharge  all  the  duties 
which  it  imposes.  If  we  cherish  the  virtues  and  the  principles  of 
our  fathers,  Heaven  will  assist  us  to  carry  on  the  work  of  human 
liberty  and  human  happiness.  Auspicious  omens  cheer  us.  Great 
examples  are  before  us.  Our  own  firmament  now  shines  brightly 
upon  our  path.  Washington  is  in  the  clear  upper  sky.  These 
other  stars  have  now  joined  the  American  constellation ;  they 
circle  round  their  centre,  and  the  heavens  beam  with  new  light. 


335 


SPECIMENS  OP 


Beneath  this  illumination  let  us  walk  the  course  of  life,  and  at  its 
close  devoutly  commend  our  beloved  country,  the  common  parent 
of  us  all,  to  the  Divine  Benignity. 


BIRTH  OF  NATIONS  .  —  H.  Bushnell 

The  true  increase  of  a  nation  is  not  that  which  is  made  by  con- 
quest and  plunder,  but  that  which  is  the  simple  development  of  its 
vital  and  prolific  resources.  Two  centuries  ago  there  came  over  to 
these  western  shores  a  few  thousand  men.  These  were  the  germ 
of  a  great  nation,  here  to  arise  and  come  into  the  public  history  of 
the  world,  possibly  as  a  leading  member.  Potentially  speaking, 
these  men  had  in  themselves  —  that  is,  in  their  persons,  their  prin- 
ciples, their  habits  and  other  resources  —  all  that  now  is,  or  is  yet 
to  be,  of  power  and  greatness  in  our  republic.  They  went  to  work 
with  a  degree  of  spirit  and  energy  never  before  exhibited.  Habits 
of  virtuous  and  frugal  industry  were  unfolded  by  a  wise  and  care- 
ful training.  Simplicity  of  manners  for  the  first  time  appeared, 
not  as  a  barbaric  virtue,  but  as  the  proper  fruit  of  simplicity  in 
religion.  The  mental  vigor  produced  by  the  same  causes  was  yet 
further  sharpened  by  the  necessities  of  a  new  state  of  existence. 
Population  multiplied,  wealth  increased,  the  forest  fell  away  at  the 
sound  of  their  axes,  the  natives  retired  before  the  potent  and  pro- 
lific energy  of  Saxon  life,  as  before  the  Great  Spirit  himself. 
Cities  rose  upon  the  shores,  the  waters  whitened  to  the  sun  under 
the  sails  of  commerce,  the  civil  order  unfolded  itself,  as  it  were 
naturally,  from  the  germ  that  blossomed  in  the  Mayflower,  —  and, 
behold,  a  great,  wealthy,  powerful  and  free  nation  stalks  into  his- 
tory with  the  tread  of  a  giant,  fastening  the  astonished  gaze  of  the 
world,  —  all  in  the  way  of  simple  growth.  We  have  made  no  eon- 
quests.  We  have  only  unfolded  our  original  germ,  the  mustard- 
seed  of  our  first  colonization.  There  is  no  other  kind  of  national 
advancement  which  is  legitimate  or  safe.  The  civil  order  must 
grow  as  a  creature  of  life,  and  unfold  itself  from  within.  It'  a 
uation  will  suddenly  extend  its  boundaries  and  build  up  its  splendor 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


337 


by  conquest,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Roman  empire,  or  in  the  subju- 
gation of  Mexico  by  Spain,  how  different  is  the  spectacle !  The 
elements  of  the  civil  order,  being  piled  together  by  mere  accretion, 
are  without  coherency  or  unity.  The  public  life  does  not  fill  the 
public  mass ;  and,  without  the  organic  power  of  life,  it  is  ready  to 
fall  to  pieces  at  the  earliest  moment.  Wealth  itself  is  poverty ; 
power  is  weakness ;  breadth  is  dissipation ;  numbers,  discontent 
and  anarchy.  A  nation  built  by  growth  is  as  different  from  a 
nation  built  by  conquest,  as  the  tree  that  stands  erect,  filled  with 
vital  sap,  covered  with  joyful  verdure,  and,  when  the  winter  comes, 
tossing  its  bare  arms  victoriously  to  the  storm,  from  a  pile  of  drift- 
wood which  the  floods  have  heaped  upon  the  shore  to  rot  and  perish. 
Accordingly,  the  very  word  nation  implies  a  nascent  order  and 
growth.  It  is  no  such  pile  of  ruins  as  the  external  accidents  of 
force  and  conquest  may  construct ;  but  it  is  a  birth,  the  unfolding 
of  a  vital  germ  through  population,  industry,  art,  literature,  law, 
and  religion. 


SLOW  GROWTH  OF  FREEDOM.  —  R.  C.  Winthrop. 

The  whole  civilized  world  resounds  with  American  opinions  and 
American  principles.  Every  vale  is  vocal  with  them.  Every 
mountain  has  found  a  tongue  for  them.  Everywhere  the  people 
are  heard  calling  their  rulers  to  account,  and  holding  them  to  a 
just  responsibility.  Everywhere  the  cry  is  raised  for  the  elective 
franchise,  the  trial  by  jury,  the  freedom  of  the  press,  written  con- 
stitutions, representative  systems,  republican  forms.  In  some 
cases,  most  fortunately,  the  rulers  themselves  have  not  escaped 
gome  seasonable  symptoms  of  the  pervading  fervor  for  freedom, 
and  have  nobly  anticipated  the  demands  of  their  subjects.  To  the 
sovereign  pontiff  of  the  Roman  states,  in  particular,  belongs  the 
honor  of  having  led  the  way  in  the  great  movement  of  the  day ; 
and  no  American  will  withhold  from  him  a  cordial  tribute  of 
respect  and  admiration  for  whatever  he  has  done  or  designed  for 
the  regeneration  of  Italy.  Glorious,  indeed,  on  the  page  of  his- 
tory, will  be  the  name  of  Pius  IX.,  if  the  rise  of  another  Rome 
29 


338 


SPECIMENS  OF 


shall  be  traced  to  his  wise  and  liberal  policy.  Yet  not  less  truly 
glorious,  if  his  own  authority  should  date  its  decline  to  his  noble 
refusal  to  lend  his  apostolical  sanction  to  a  war  of  conquest. 

For  Italy,  however,  and  for  France,  and  for  the  whole  European 
world  alike,  a  great  work  still  remains.  A  rational,  practical, 
enduring  liberty  cannot  be  acquired  in  a  paroxysm,  cannot  be 
established  by  a  proclamation.  It  is  not,  our  own  history  proves 
that  it  is  not, 

"  The  hasty  product  of  a  day, 
But  the  well-ripened  fruit  of  wise  delay." 

The  redress  of  a  few  crying  grievances,  the  reform  of  a  few  glaring 
abuses,  the  banishment  of  a  minister,  the  burning  of  a  throne,  the 
overthrow  of  a  dynasty,  —  these  are  but  scanty  preparations  for 
the  mighty  undertaking  upon  which  they  have  entered.  New  sys- 
tems are  to  be  constructed ;  new  forms  to  be  established;  new 
governments  to  be  instituted,  organized  and  administered,  upon 
principles  which  shall  reconcile  the  seeming  conflict  between  lib- 
erty and  law,  and  secure  to  every  one  the  enjoyment  of  regulated 
constitutional  freedom. 


FOE  THE  IRISH  PATRIOTS.  —  /.  Shields. 

The  most  friendly  relations  exist  at  this  time  between  this 
country  and  Great  Britain.  There  is  a  strong  feeling  of  mutual 
regard  and  common  interest,  and,  perhaps  I  may  add,  a  sense  of 
common  danger,  uniting  the  people  of  both  countries  at  this  moment 
in  close  and  intimate  connection.  The  English  people,  so  far  as  I 
can  observe,  are  beginning  to  appreciate  the  character,  resources 
and  institutions,  of  this  country,  and  to  look  with  something  like 
admiration  upon  the  growth  of  this  continental  republic.  Not 
only  England,  but  the  world,  begins  to  see  and  acknowledge  that 
this  nation  is  destined  to  future  supremacy.  America  is  the  pre- 
destined mistress  of  the  future.  Such  is  not  the  condition  of  Eng- 
land herself.  Great  and  powerful  as  England  is  at  this  day,  — 
and  the  world  admits  that  she  is  great  and  powerful,  —  her  cir- 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


339 


cumstances  are  such  that  she  will  be  forced  to  compromise  with 
the  future.  She  has  power,  strength  and  energy ;  but  her  ener- 
gies may  be  said  to  be  fettered.  She  is  like  a  giantess  in  chains. 
Her  immense  debt  constitutes  her  chains  and  her  fetters.  The 
English  people  are  strong  and  patient.  They  possess  a  great  many 
sterling  qualities,  —  industry,  perseverance  and  fortitude ;  but, 
with  all  these  qualities,  such  is  the  vast  load  which  is  now  pressing 
upon  them,  they  will  be  compelled,  in  my  opinion,  in  the  first  gen- 
eral convulsion,  the  first  political  tempest,  that  shakes  the  continent 
of  Europe,  to  fling  off  the  load,  or  perish  under  its  weight. 

There  is  a  volume  of  instruction  in  the  present  condition  of 
England.  Every  American  statesman  should  study  it  with  atten- 
tion. The  debt  which  now  weighs  upon  the  heart  of  England  — 
and  which  no  other  nation  on  this  earth  could  support  for  a  single 
day  —  was  not  contracted  for  any  great  English  object  or  interest, 
but  for  what  was  plainly  and  emphatically  a  continental  interest, 
—  to  crush  Napoleon,  to  defend  Austria,  Russia  and  Prussia,  to 
maintain  the  old  royalties  and  aristocracies  of  Europe.  Well ; 
the  object  was  accomplished,  the  old  despotisms  were  sustained, 
England  and  Englishmen  were  mortgaged  "  to  the  last  syllable  of 
recorded  time  "  to  accomplish  this  desirable  object.  And  what  is 
the  result  ?  What  is  the  state  of  the  continent  at  this  moment  ? 
Why,  from  the  Frozen  Ocean  to  the  Mediterranean  Sea  the  des- 
potisms of  Europe  were  never  before  as  closely  bound  together  in 
deep  hostility  to  England  as  they  are  in  1852.  This,  too,  after 
all  her  sacrifices  in  behalf  of  venerable  despotism.  This  is  her 
present  position,  and  this  is  the  present  condition  of  Europe.  At 
such  a  time,  and  after  such  experience,  it  is  perfectly  natural  that 
the  people  of  England  should  turn  their  hearts  and  thoughts  to 
America.  It  is  not  only  natural,  but  politic,  that  they  should 
begin  to  cultivate  the  friendship  of  a  great  kindred  people,  who, 
from  the  rapid  growth  of  their  population  and  power,  and  the 
extraordinary  advantages  of  their  geographical  position,  will  soon 
I  be  able  to  influence  the  destinies  of  nations,  by  throwing  their 
whole  weight  into  the  scale  of  liberty,  justice  and  humanity.  And 
permit  me  to  say  that,  so  far  as  I  know  the  American  heart,  I  feel 


340 


SPECIMENS  OF 


to  declare,  that  if  the  English  people  prove  true  to  themselves  and 
just  to  their  fellow-subjects,  if  they  assert  and  maintain  the  great 
principles  of  religious  and  political  liberty,  they  will  find  a  more 
generous  sympathy,  and  a  more  effective,  unbought  and  unpurchas- 
able  support,  on  this  continent,  in  the  hour  of  need,  than  they  can 
ever  hope  to  purchase  or  subsidize,  with  the  duplicate  of  their 
national  debt,  upon  the  continent  of  Europe. 

But  I  will  confine  myself  on  this  occasion  to  a  recent  familiar 
instance,  in  relation  to  the  Hungarians.  England  interfered 
directly  in  behalf  of  Kossuth  and  his  companions,  while  we  merely 
intercede  for  Smith  O'Brien  and  his  associates.  She  defended  these 
Hungarians  against  Austria  and  Russia ;  we  only  appeal  to  her  own 
clemency  for  the  liberation  of  Irish  patriots.  She  contributed  to 
the  liberation  of  Austrian  subjects,  although  they  are,  in  a  certain 
sense,  still  dangerous  to  the  Austrian  government.  We  simply 
request  the  liberation  of  British  subjects,  whose  freedom,  in  my 
opinion,  at  this  time,  will  serve  to  strengthen  the  English  govern- 
ment. We  all  recollect  the  universal  delight  with  which  the 
American  people  witnessed  the  first  interference  of  England  in 
behalf  of  the  Hungarian  exiles.  When  the  British  fleet  appeared 
at  the  mouth  of  the  Dardanelles,  —  when  the  red  cross  of  England 
joined  the  crescent  of  Mahomet,  and  blazed  in  defence  of  the  exile 
and  the  unfortunate, — all  America,  with  one  voice,  shouted  glory 
and  honor  to  the  flag  of  Old  England.  She  acted  gloriously  on 
that  occasion.  Her  conduct  called  forth  the  applause  of  the  liberal 
world.  But  now  we  have  to  moderate  this  applause,  when  we 
think  of  Van  Diemen's  Land.  We  give  her  credit  for  her  gener- 
osity abroad,  but  we  are  sorry  to  be  compelled  to  refuse  her  equal 
credit  for  her  clemency  at  home.  Patriotism  cannot  be  a  virtue 
in  Hungary  and  a  crime  in  Ireland.  England  may  be  able  to 
make  some  distinction  between  the  two  cases,  but  the  world  will 
refuse  to  recognize  it.  She  will  raise  her  national  character  in  the 
estimation  of  the  world,  she  will  establish  her  disinterestedness 
before  the  tribunal  of  history  and  posterity,  if  she  follow  up  her^ 
conduct  towards  the  Hungarians  with  the  liberation  of  the  Irish 
exiles.    As  it  is,  her  conduct  is  severely  criticized  on  the  continent 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


34.1 


of  Europe.  The  Austrians  and  Russians,  especially,  accuse  her  of 
hypocrisy,  of  violating  the  great  law  of  moral  and  political  con- 
sistency, of  traversing  half  the  globe  in  defence  and  support  of 
Hungarian  patriots,  while  at  the  same  time  she  proscribes,  banishes 
and  imprisons,  Irish  patriots.  They  say  English  philanthropy  is 
like  the  philanthropy  of  the  elder  Mirabeau,  who  was  styled  "  The 
Friend  of  Man  "  for  his  universal  benevolence,  while  he  practised, 
at  the  same  time,  within  the  bosom  of  his  own  family,  the  most 
cruel,  heartless  and  unrelenting  tyranny.  This  is  the  kind  of 
indictment  the  continent  prefers  against  England  at  this  time.  I 
am  not  prepared  to  endorse  it.  On  the  contrary,  I  am  thoroughly 
convinced  she  will  avail  herself  of  the  first  favorable  opportunity 
to  clear  her  reputation  from  any  such  reproach.  I  am  inclined  to 
think  she  will  feel  thankful  to  this  government  for  supplying  her 
with  a  fair  occasion,  a  graceful  pretext,  to  perform  a  humane  and 
politic  -act.  The  world  will  then  see  that  she  is  not  governed, 
either  in  her  foreign  or  domestic  policy,  by  jealousy  of  Russia  or 
hatred  of  Austria,  but  by  a  great  principle  of  philanthropy  and 
humanity. 

If  we  weigh  the  conduct  of  these  Irish  patriots,  not  in  legal  but 
in  moral  scales,  we  will  find  much  to  justify  their  attempt.  They 
loved  their  native  country.  There  is  no  moral  guilt  in  this.  On 
the  contrary,  the  love  of  country  is  one  of  the  noblest  sentiments 
of  our  nature.  When  this  sentiment  fades  from  the  soul,  the  soul 
has  lost  its  original  brightness.  In  Ireland,  however,  this  senti- 
ment is  almost  considered  a  political  offence.  There  is  something 
so  unnatural  in  this  state  of  things,  that  what  the  English  law 
denounces  as  treason  the  Irish  heart  recognizes  as  patriotism.  An 
Irish  patriot  hears  himself  pronounced  guilty  in  what  is  called  the 
sanctuary  of  justice,  while  he  feels  in  the  sanctuary  of  his  heart 
that  he  stands  guiltless  before  God  arid  his  country.  This  must 
be  all  perfectly  understood,  to  appreciate  the  conduct  of  these  men. 
In  the  eye  of  the  law,  they  are  convicted  felons ;  but  in  every 
honest,  manly  Irish  heart,  they  are  received  and  recognized  as 
Irish  patriots.  And  why  should  it  be  otherwise?  You  must 
destroy  the  heart  before  you  can  destroy  this  sentiment.  Ireland 
29* 


342 


SPECIMENS  OF 


is  their  native  country ;  they  saw  her  lying  around  them  in  ruins. 
They  made  a  desperate  effort  to  collect  the  broken  fragments,  and 
bind  them  together  into  something  like  nationality.  The  effort 
failed;  it  was  bound  to  fail.  The  spirit  of  Irish  nationality  is 
dead.  Bat  I  will  ask  any  generous  American  heart,  I  will  put  it 
even  to  any  generous  English  heart,  whether  these  men  are  to  be 
blamed,  in  the  present  wretched  condition  of  Ireland,  for  making 
the  attempt.  Who  can  blame  Smith  O'Brien,  whose  ancestors 
were  kings  in  Ireland  before  Saxon,  Dane  or  Norman,  ever  planted 
a  foot  on  Irish  soil,  for  making  an  attempt,  however  hopeless,  to 
raise  and  resuscitate  his  fallen  country  ?  In  fact,  who  can  blame 
any  Irishman  for  seeking  to  effect  a  radical  change  in  the  condition 
of  his  country,  since  no  change  consistent  with  social  existence  can 
make  her  condition  worse  than  it  is  at  this  time  ?  Poor  Ireland  ! 
her  history  is  a  sad  one.  It  is  written  in  the  tears  and  blood  of 
her  children.  Her  sons  have  been  so  long  accustomed  to  iiijustice, 
that  they  regard  themselves  as  aliens  and  outcasts  in  the  very  land 
that  God  gave  them  as  a  heritage.  Yet  they  love  their  country 
with  all  the  fervor  of  the  Irish  heart.  The  more  she  suffers,  the 
more  they  love  her.  This  love  has  become  almost  a  part  of  their 
religion,  and  of  their  fervent  devotion  to  their  God.  As  her  own 
sweet  poet  has  so  truly  and  beautifully  said  : 

"  Her  chains  as  they  rankle  her  blood  as  it  runs, 
But  make  her  more  painfully  dear  to  her  sons." 

This  is  true ;  and  in  the  midst  of  poverty  and  contempt  her  sons 
weep  over  her  desolation,  and  pray  for  the  hour  of  her  deliverance. 
There  is  something  incomprehensible  to  the  human  mind  in  the 
mysterious  Providence  that  rules  the  destiny  of  nations.  Israel 
gave  a  Saviour  to  the  world ;  and  the  world,  in  return,  has 
persecuted  and  denaturalized  the  children  of  Abraham.  Greece 
instructed  the  world,  taught  it  arts  and  sciences,  lifted  it  out  of  a 
state  of  barbarism  into  a  high  state  of  civilization,  —  and  look  at 
the  world's  recompense  !  The  Boman  and  Ottoman,  in  succession, 
trampled  upon  the  susceptible  heart  and  beautiful  mind  of  Greece ; 
and  now  that  land  of  gods  and  godlike  men  is  the  footstool  of  the 


4 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


343 


unsympathizing  Goth.  Poland  and  Hungary  saved  Christendom 
in  the  day  of  its  weakness ;  they  repulsed  the  crescent  in  the  day 
of  its  power ;  and,  in  grateful  return,  three  great  Christian  powers 
have  dismembered  Poland  and  distributed  her  bleeding  members 
amongst  them,  and  Christian  Europe  is  now  singing  "  Te  Deuras  " 
and  "Hosannas"  over  the  prostrate  and  mangled  body  of  Hun- 
gary! 


ADDRESS  TO  THE  SURVIVORS  OF  THE  BATTLE  OF  LEXINGTON. 
—  R.  Rantoul,  Jr. 

Living  mementos  of  the  glorious  past !  long  may  your  valued 
presence  remind  us  of  our  duty  to  the  future,  by  showing  what  the 
past  has  done  for  us,  by  carrying  back  our  thoughts  to  the  times 
that  tried  men's  souls.  These  are  of  the  number  that  took  their 
lives  in  their  hand,  and  walked  fearless  among  the  death-shafts, 
counting  all  things  earthly  but  as  dross,  that,  surviving,  they  might 
point  out  to  us,  or,  dying,  might  bequeath  to  us,  a  more  excellent 
way,  a  career  of  pure,  unshackled  liberty. 

Favorites  of  time,  who  has  dealt  so  gently  with  you,  what  a 
contrast  do  your  eyes  behold  when  you  compare  the  mighty  empire 
which*you  helped  to  found  with  the  feeble  colony  that  gave  you 
birth  !  The  period  of  your  life  has  been  contemporaneous  with  the 
work  of  many  ages :  never  before  have  a  thousand  years  done  for 
any  nation  under  heaven  what  the  last  three-fourths  of  a  century 
have  done  for  us.  A  thousand  years  constructed  and  confirmed 
the  majestic  fabric  of  the  Roman  empire;  sages  and  warriors, 
through  a  thousand  years  of  fixed  purpose,  iron  resolution  and  all- 
enduring  fortitude,  established  the  dominion  of  the  eternal  city, 
unshaken  by  the  burthen  of  the  world,  and  not  to  be  destroyed, 
save  in  the  wreck  of  the  old  heathen  world  passing  away  forever. 
But  you,  wonderful  men,  preceded  by  many  years  this  empire ;  in 
the  purple  ripeness  of  maturely-developed  youth,  you  stood  by  the 
cradle  of  this  empire  when  the  young  Alcides  strangled  the  mon- 
sters sent  by  his  step -mother ;  when  our  home  was  a  strip  of  land 
between  the  ocean  and  the  Alleghanies,  which  scattered  settlers, 


344 


SPECIMENS  OP 


with  no  wealth  but  the  labor  of  their  hands,  disputed  with  tho 
savages.  You  have  lived  to  be  citizens  of  an  empire  broader  than 
Rome,  mightier  than  Rome,  wealthier  than  Rome,  wiser  than 
Rome,  holier  than  Rome.  Machinery,  the  creation  of  the  free 
mind,  does  more  for  us,  ten-fold  more,  than  all  the  arms  of  her 
many  million  subjects  did  for  her.  Look  around  you !  all  that 
you  see,  and  all  that  your  and  our  posterity  shall  see,  is  the  fruit 
of  liberty ;  and  of  that  liberty  it  is  for  you,  to  say  truly,  We  and 
our  comrades,  on  the  nineteenth  of  April,  planted  the  fructifying 
seed. 

Look  around  you,  and  survey  your  work.  It  is  not  enough 
that  we  proclaim  that  a  small  one  has  become  a  great  people ;  that 
day  by  day  new  nations  rise  up  to  call  you  blessed ;  that  even 
now  states,  infant  in  years,  but  giants  in  vigor  and  proportions, 
press  at  your  portals,  asking  admission  as  coordinate  sovereignties, 
"demanding  life,  impatient  for  the  skies."  Look  around  you! 
measure  the  improvement  of  the  condition  of  the  individual  deni- 
zens of  all  our  towns  and  villages,  and  see  if  it  tend  not  onward 
and  upward  in  an  accelerated  ratio,  equal,  at  least,  to  that  of  our 
political  greatness.  The  hardy  colonist  extracted  from  the  soil, 
with  infinite  labor,  a  frugal  subsistence,  uncertain  how  long  he 
should  hold  even  his  earnings,  —  for  the  mother  country  elaimed 
the  right  to  bind  the  colonies  in  all  cases  whatsoever,  —  collecting 
few  comforts,  desiring  no  luxuries ;  without  machinery,  without 
capital,  almost  without  intercourse,  scarcely  recovered  from  the 
exhaustion  of  ruinous  French  and  Indian  wars.  The  fair  enchant- 
ress, Liberty,  has  waved  her  potent  wand :  prosperity  and  happi- 
ness crown  all  the  hills  and  cover  the  plains ;  on  every  waterfall  a 
city  rises  like  an  exhalation ;  the  iron  horse  —  the  missionary 
which  science  despatches  to  lead  the  van  of  advancing  refinement 
—  snorts  over  the  prairies  scarcely  abandoned  by  the  disappearing 
buffalo ;  the  electric  nerve  throbs  with  the  impulse  of  intelligence 
from  Halifax  to  New  Orleans ;  internal  commerce  dips  her  silver 
oar  in  every  lake ;  the  birchen  canoe  of  the  native  hunter  is  trans- 
formed to  a  water-borne  palace,  gorgeous  with  the  adornments  of 
high  art,  and  steadying  her  upright  keel  against  the  wind  with  the 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


345 


miraculous  energy  of  imprisoned  fire.  Of  the  rich  exuberance  of 
our  plenty  we  may  impart  with  a  world-wide  charity ;  and  ocean 
smiles  to  transport  upon  her  bosom  the  messengers  freighted  with 
salvation  to  the  famine-stricken  millions  of  slavery -blasted  Ireland ! 


KOSSUTH  IN  MASSACHUSETTS.  —  A.  Burlingame. 

Our  first  invitation  found  him  beyond  the  Alleghanies  with  the 
free  sons  of  the  West,  —  he  had  then  visited  the  chief  cities  along 
the  Atlantic  slope.  Since  then,  he  has  made  the  wide  circuit  of 
the  republic,  everywhere  pouring  out  his  life  into  the  great  bosom 
of  the  people,  filling  it  with  the  loftiest  sentiments.  He  kindled 
the  bold  spirit  of  our  western  land  into  a  flame  of  enthusiasm.  He 
laid  his  hand  tenderly  upon  the  fiery  heart  of  the  South,  and 
soothed  it  into  sympathy.  This  he  did  before  he  turned  his  feet 
toward  New  England ;  and  many  of  his  friends,  in  this  home  of  his 
friends,  feared  —  because  of  the  long  interval  between  his  arrival 
in  the  country  and  his  visit  here  —  that  the  original  interest  awak- 
ened by  the  story  of  his  heroic  life  might  have  somewhat  declined ; 
but  the  shouts  of  the  people  with  which  he  is  greeted  —  rising,  as 
they  do  here  to-night,  like  the  voice  of  many  waters  —  tell  us  that 
the  interest  in  himself  and  country  has  rather  deepened  than 
diminished. 

He  does  not  feel  the  breeze  from  the  distant  prairies,  or  enjoy 
the  fragrance  of  the  magnolia's  blossoms ;  but  here,  on  these  cold 
hills,  and  by  this  stormy  sea,  he  has  found  hearts  as  God  made 
them,  open  to  the  reception  of  truth,  and  responsive  to  the  voice  of 
humanity.  And  why  is  it  that  this  people  —  taught  from  the 
cradle  to  the  grave  to  conserve  its  own  dignity  —  gives  itself  with 
child-like  confidence  to  the  voice  of  this  one  man,  and  he  a  stranger  ? 
Is  it  blind  adoration  of  that  form,  not  yet  quite  wasted  by  the  dun- 
geon or  broken  by  the  toils  of  a  struggling  life,  —  for  that  which 
may  be  cold  in  an  hour  ?  —  No !  no !  It  is  because  eternal  truth 
dwells  on  those  lips ;  it  is  because  those  eyes  beam  with  the  efiul- 
gence  of  principles  which  shall  flourish  in  immortal  vigor  when  all 


346  SPECIMENS  OF 

men  are  in  the  dust.  But,  gentlemen,  I  shall  not  give  wing  to 
speech,  or  do  anything  to  break  the  delicious  spell  which  now 
enthralls  you.  I  leave  you  to  the  charms  of  the  serene  eloquence 
you  have  heard,  feeling  that  its  mournful  melody  will  linger  in 
your  memories  like  the  recollections  of  some  grand  old  song,  long 
after  the  voice  which  made  it  shall  have  died  away ! 


THE  PATRIOT'S  HOPE.  —  T.  Ewing. 

Our  republic  has  long  been  a  theme  of  speculation  among  the 
savans  of  Europe.  They  profess  to  have  cast  its  horoscope;  and 
fifty  years  was  fixed  upon  by  many  as  the  utmost  limit  of  its  dura- 
•  tion.  But  those  years  passed  by,  and  beheld  us  a  united  and 
happy  people ;  our  political  atmosphere  agitated  by  no  storm,  and 
scarce  a  cloud  to  obscure  the  serenity  of  our  horizon ;  all  of  the 
present  was  prosperity,  all  of  the  future  hope.  True,  upon  the 
day  of  that  anniversary  two  venerated  fathers  of  our  freedom  and 
of  our  country  fell ;  but  they  sunk  calmly  to  rest,  in  the  maturity 
of  years  and  in  the  fulness  of  time,  and  their  simultaneous  departure, 
on  that  day  of  jubilee,  for  another  and  a  better  world,  was  hailed 
by  our  nation  as  a  propitious  sign,  sent  to  us  from  heaven.  Wan- 
dering, the  other  day,  in  the  alcoves  of  the  library,  I  accidentally 
opened  a  volume  containing  the  orations  delivered  by  many  distin- 
guished men  on  that  solemn  occasion,  and  I  noted  some  expressions 
of  a  few  who  now  sit  in  this  hall,  which  are  deep-fraught  with  the 
then  prevailing,  I  may  say  universal  feeling.  It  is  inquired  by 
one,  "  Is  this  the  effect  of  accident  or  blind  chance,  or  has  that  God 
who  holds  in  his  hand  the  destiny  of  nations  and  of  men  designed 
these  things  as  an  evidence  of  the  permanence  and  perpetuity  of 
our  institutions  ?  "  Another  says,  "  Is  it  not  stamped  with  the 
seal  of  divinity  ? "  And  a  third,  descanting  on  the  prospects, 
bright  and  glorious,  which  opened  on  our  beloved  country,  says, 
"  Auspicious  omens  cheer  us  !  " 

Yet  it  would  have  required  but  a  tinge  of  superstitious  gloom 
to  have  drawn  from  that  event  darker  forebodings  of  that  which 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


347 


was  to  come.  Tn  our  primitive  wilds,  where  the  order  of  nature  is 
unbroken  by  the  hand  of  man, — there,  where  majestic  trees  arise, 
spread  forth  their  branches,  live  out  their  age,  and  decline,  —  some- 
times will  a  patriarchal  plant,  which  has  stood  for  centuries  the 
winds  and  storms,  fall  when  no  breeze  agitates  a  leaf  of  the  trees 
that  surround  it.  And  when,  in  the  calm  stillness  of  a  summer's 
noon,  the  solitary  woodsman  hears  on  either  hand  the  heavy  crash 
of  huge,  branchless  trunks,  falling  by  their  own  weight  to  the  earth 
whence  they  sprung,  prescient  of  the  future,  he  foresees  the  whirl- 
wind at  hand,  which  shall  sweep  through  the  forest,  break  its 
strongest  stems,  upturn  its  deepest  roots,  and  strew  in  the  dust  its 
tallest,  proudest  heads.  But  I  am  none  of  those  who  indulge  in 
gloomy  anticipation.  I  do  not  despair  of  the  republic.  My  trust 
is  strong,  that  the  gallant  ship,  in  which  all  our  hopes  are  em- 
barked, will  yet  outride  the  storm  ;  saved  alike  from  the  breakers 
and  billows  of  disunion,  and  the  greedy  whirlpool,  the  all-ingulf- 
ing maelstroom,  of  executive  power  ;  that,  unbroken,  if  not  un- 
harmed, she  may  pursue  her  prosperous  voyage  far  down  the 
stream  of  time ;  and  that  the  banner  of  our  country,  which  now 
waves  over  us  so  proudly,  will  still  float  in  triumph,  borne  on  the 
wings  of  heaven,  fanned  by  the  breath  of  fame,  every  stripe  bright 
and  unsullied,  every  star  fixed  in  its  sphere,  ages  after  each  of  us 
now  here  shall  have  ceased  to  gaze  on  its  majestic  folds  forever ! 


DEATHS  OF  ADAMS  AND  JEFFERSON.  —  E.  Everett. 

The  jubilee  of  America  is  turned  into  mourning.  Its  joy  is 
mingled  with  sadness ;  its  silver  trumpet  breathes  a  mingled  strain. 
Henceforward  and  forever,  while  America  exists  among  the  nations 
of  the  earth,  the  first  emotion  on  the  Fourth  of  July  shall  be  of  joy 
and  triumph  in  the  great  event  which  immortalizes  the  day,  —  the 
second  shall  be  one  of  chastised  and  tender  recollection  of  the  ven- 
erable men  who  departed  on  the  morning  of  the  jubilee.  This 
mingled  emotion  of  triumph  and  sadness  has  sealed  the  moral 
beauty  and  sublimity  of  our  great  anniversary.    In  the  simple 


3-18 


SPECIMENS  OF 


commemoration  of  a  victorious  political  achievement,  there  seems  not 
enough  to  occupy  all  our  purest  and  best  feelings.  The  Fourth 
of  July  was  before  a  day  of  unshaded  triumph,  exultation,  and 
national  pride  ;  but  the  angel  of  death  has  mingled  in  the  all-glo- 
rious pageant,  to  teach  us  we  are  men.  Had  our  venerated  fathers 
left  us  on  any  other  day,  the  day  of  the  united  departure  of  two 
such  men  would  henceforward  have  been  remembered  but  as  a  day 
of  mourning.  But  now,  while  their  decease  has  gently  chastened 
the  exultations  of  the  triumphant  festival,  the  banner  of  independ- 
ence will  wave  cheerfully  over  the  spot  where  they  repose.  The 
whole  nation  feels,  as  with  one  heart,  that  since  it  must  sooner  or 
later  have  been  bereaved  of  its  revered  fathers,  it  could  not  have 
wished  that  any  other  had  been  the  day  of  their  decease.  Our 
anniversary  festival  was  before  triumphant ;  it  is  now  triumphant 
and  sacred.  It  before  called  out  the  young  and  ardent  to  join  in 
the  public  rejoicings ;  it  now  also  speaks,  in  a  touching  voice,  to 
the  retired,  to  the  gray-headed,  to  the  mild  and  peaceful  spirits, 
to  the  whole  family  of  sober  freemen.  With  some  appeal  of  joy, 
of  admiration,  of  tenderness,  it  henceforth  addresses  every  Amer- 
ican heart.  It  is  henceforward  what  the  dying  Adams  pronounced 
it, —  a  great  and  a  good  day.  It  is  full  of  greatness,  and  full  of 
goodness.  It  is  absolute  and  complete.  The  death  of  the  men 
who  declared  our  independence  —  their  death  on  the  day  of  the 
jubilee  —  was  all  that  was  wanting  to  the  Fourth  of  July.  To 
die  on  that  day,  and  to  die  together,  was  all  that  was  wanting  to 
Jefferson  and  Adams. 

Think  not,  fellow-citizens,  that,  in  the  mere  formal  discharge  of 
my  duty  this  day,  I  would  overrate  the  melancholy  interest  of  the 
great  occasion.  Heaven  knows  I  do  anything  but  intentionally 
overrate  it.  I  labor  only  for  words  to  do  justice  to  your  feelings 
and  to  mine.  I  can  say  nothing  which  does  not  sound  as  cold,  as 
tame,  and  as  inadequate,  to  myself  as  to  you.  The  theme  is  too 
great  and  too  surprising,  the  men  are  too  great  and  good,  to  bo 
spoken  of  in  this  cursory  manner.  There  is  too  much  in  the  con- 
templation of  their  united  characters,  their  services,  the  day  and 
coincidence  of  their  death,  to  be  properly  described,  or  to  be  fully 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


349 


felt  at  once.  I  dare  not  come  here  and  dismiss,  in  a  few  summary 
paragraphs,  the  characters  of  men  who  have  rilled  such  a  space  in 
the  history  of  their  age.  It  would  be  a  disrespectful  familiarity 
with  men  of  their  lofty  spirits,  their  rich  endowments,  their  deep 
counsels  and  wise  measures,  their  long  and  honorable  lives,  to 
endeavor  thus  to  weigh  and  estimate  them.  I  feel  the  mournful 
contrast  in  the  fortunes  of  the  first  and  best  of  men,  that  after  a 
life  in  the  highest  walks  of  usefulness ;  after  conferring  benefits, 
not  merely  on  a  neighborhood,  a  city,  or  even  a  state,  but  on  a 
whole  continent,  and  a  posterity  of  kindred  men ;  after  having 
stood  in  the  first  estimation  for  talents,  services  and  influence, 
among  millions  of  fellow-citizens,  —  a  day  should  come  which 
closes  all  up,  pronounces  a  brief  blessing  on  their  memory ;  gives 
an  hour  to  the  actions  of  a  crowded  life ;  describes  in  a  sentence 
what  it  took  years  to  bring  to  pass,  and  what  is  destined  for  years 
and  ages  to  continue  and  operate  on  posterity;  forces  into  a  few 
words  the  riches  of  busy  days  of  action  and  weary  nights  of  medi- 
tation; passes  forgetfully  over  many  traits  of  character,  many 
counsels  and  measures,  which  it  cost,  perhaps,  years  of  discipline 
and  effort  to  mature ;  utters  a  funeral  prayer,  chants  a  mournful 
anthem,  and  then  dismisses  all  into  the  dark  chambers  of  death 
and  forgetfulness. 


GENIUS.  —  H.  Giles. 

Genius,  to  enjoy  and  to  communicate  happy  and  exalting  life, 
must  have  union  with  the  moral  and  the  spiritual,  —  with  the  truth 
which  they  inspire,  with  the  beauty  which  they  sanctify.  These 
belong  to  the  soul's  moral  and  progressive  being ;  and  these,  good 
and  fair  forever,  no  genius  can  exhaust,  and  no  genius  can  tran- 
scend. Genius,  therefore,  to  ask  in  freedom,  and  in  a  right  direc- 
tion, must  be  of  faith,  and  love,  and  hope :  of  the  faith  which  can 
reverence  and  can  trust ;  of  the  love  which  can  receive  and  give ; 
of  the  hope  which  faith  and  love  sustain,  which  gleams  cheeringly 
over  the  path  of  humanity,  and  which,  by  large  sympathy,  has 
30 


350 


SPECIMENS  OF 


large  wisdom.  These  are  the  principles  which  connect  us  with  the 
universe  of  highest  thought  and  of  most  enduring  beauty.  It  is 
by  faith  that  poetry,  as  well  as  devotion,  soars  above  this  dull 
earth  ;  that  imagination  breaks  through  its  clouds,  breathes  a  purer 
air,  and  lives  in  a  softer  light.  It  is  love  that  gives  the  poet  the 
whole  heart  of  man ;  and  it  is  by  love  that  he  speaks  to  the  whole 
heart  of  man  forever.  Hope,  which  is  but  our  ideal  future,  lives 
even  in  our  most  prosaic  experience,  and  is  a  needful  solace  to  our 
daily  toils.  We  can  then  but  ill  spare  it  from 'our  poetic  dreams. 
We  can  but  ill  endure,  among  so  many  sad  realities,  to  rob  antici- 
pation of  its  pleasant  visions. 

In  speaking  thus,  I  would  not  imply  that  life  can  be  always 
sunshine.  By  no  means.  Its  afflictions  arc  many  ;  they  are  uni- 
versal, they  are  inevitable.  Because  they  are  so,  life  can  afford  to 
lose  none  of  its  alleviations.  Much  jthat  belongs  merely  to  the 
present  it  must  of  necessity  lose.  Wretched  it  is,  indeed,  if  it 
must  likewise  resign  the  future.  Much  will  be  carried  from  us, 
as  our  years  decline,  which  years  that  come  never  can  restore. 
Hours  there  are,  brief,  happy  hours,  in  experience,  whic|j  may  not 
be  forgotten,  but  are  no  more  to  be  renewed.  They  can  be  but 
once,  and  the  effort  to  repeat  is  to  destroy  them.  They  go  to  the 
past  as  a  dream  ;  they  are  no  more,  except  that  now  and  then  their 
shadows  mock  us  through  the  mist  of  days.  Pure  enjoyments  and 
bright  expectances  the  most  meagre  souls  have  known  some  time 
in  their  existence ;  and  the  most  meagre  souls,  in  feeling  that  they 
shall  never  know  them  again,  are  capable  of  deep  regret.  They 
are  as  a  melody  when  the  lute  is  broken  ;  they  are  as  a  tale  the 
minstrel  tells  —  and  dies.  The  inanimate  universe  itself  seems  to 
undergo  the  changes  of  our  own  spirits,  and  to  sympathize  with 
the  transitions  of  our  own  experience.  The  stars,  it  is  true,  rise 
as  brightly  in  the  heavens,  the  flowers  spring  as  lovely  from  the 
earth,  the  woodlands  bloom  as  freshly  as  before;  but,  0,  the  glory 
and  the  joy  within,  the  fancy  and  the  hope  which  made  the  stars 
more  beautiful,  and  the  flowers  more  graceful,  and  the  woods  more 
elysian,and  the  birds  more  musical,  will  not  last  with  passing  suns, 
nor  come  back  again  with  returning  seasons !    I  do  not  decry  this 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


351 


characteristic  of  our  nature.  I  do  not  decry  the  genius  which  has 
affinity  with  it,  and  appeals  to  it.  A  high  and  solemn  melancholy 
is  the  sighing  of  our  immortality ;  it  is  the  struggle  of  a  divine 
aspiration  with  our  earthly  imperfections.  The  capacity  of  sorrow 
belongs  to  our  grandeur ;  and  the  loftiest  of  our  race  are  those 
who  have  had  the  profoundest  grief,  because  they  have  had  the 
profoundest  sympathies.  There  is  a  sadness  which  is  an  attribute 
of  our  spiritual  humanity ;  and  it  is  only  when  this  spiritual  hu- 
manity is  dormant  that  misery  approaches  the  limitation  of  simple 
physical  suffering  or  physical  want.  To  be  happy  as  moral  and 
intellectual  beings,  we  must  feel  the  joy  which  has  its  centre  in  the 
soul ;  from  that  centre  springs  also  the  anguish  which  testifies  our 
exaltation.  This  very  sorrow  of  ours  is  one  of  the  strongest  rea- 
sons why  nothing  should  dissociate  the  soul  from  principles  which 
are  not  dependent  on  externals,  but  which,  when  suns  grow  dim, 
will  come  out  into  brighter  revelation ! 


AGAINST  ALLIANCE  WITH  ENGLAND.  —  /.  Clemens. 

It  was  an  inflexible  rule  of  the  Roman  senate  never  to  make 
peace  with  a  victorious  enemy,  lest  amid  the  sufferings  and  humil- 
iations of  defeat  they  might  be  tempted  to  sacrifice  the  interests  of 
the  republic.  No  wonder  that  a  people  governed  by  such  rules 
became  the  masters  of  the  world.  Over  them  the  passions  had  no 
sway ;  reason  ruled  supreme.  Cold  as  the  marble  columns  about 
them,  no  wild  fancies  led  them  into  profitless  adventures,  no  vain 
dreams  of  universal  philanthropy  taught  them  to  forget  the  higher 
duties  they  owed  to  Rome. 

The  present  project  of  intervention  does  not  come  recommended 
to  me  by  the  company  in  which  it  proposes  to  place  us.  We  are 
asked  to  act  in  conjunction  with  England,  who  may  well  find  it  for 
her  own  interest  and  her  own  safety,  but  who  will  offer  us  nothing 
in  exchange  for  our  share  in  the  common  danger  and  the  common 
expense.  The  policy  of  England  is  known  to  the  world ;  and  all 
history  is  false,  if  she  ever  formed  an  alliance  without  a  selfish  end 


352 


SPECIMENS  OF 


in  view.  Whatever  nation  subserves  her  purposes  is  her  ally  for 
the  time  being,  but  not  a  moment  longer.  A  league  with  England 
out  of  which  any  good  could  arise  io  America  is  an  Utopian  dream, 
of  which  a  schoolboy  should  be  ashamed. 

In  her  case,  also,  even  feeling  prompts  us  to  reject  the  proffered 
fellowship.  There  are  many  wounds  inflicted  in  the  past  whose 
"  poor  dumb  mouths "  plead  eloquently  against  such  an  alliance. 
The  fierce  Tarlton  and  the  merciless  Eawdon  are  not  yet  forgotten. 
The  house-burnings  of  Cockburn  and  the  savage  massacres  of  Proc- 
tor still  blacken  the  page  of  history.  Time  has  not  abated  the 
deep  indignation  excited  by  the  brutal  war-cry  which  rang  over 
the  plains  of  New  Orleans;  and  none  of  us  remember,  without  a 
feeling  of  resentment,  the  Vandal  inroad  to  which  this  capital  was 
subjected.  That  large  class  of  our  population  who  are  of  Irish 
birth  or  Irish  extraction  have  darker  memories  to  cherish,  and 
deeper  wrongs  to  avenge.  Many  of  them  have  had  their  infant 
slumbers  broken  by  the  rattle  of  musketry  and  the  fierce  yell  of  an 
infuriated  soldiery ;  and  none  of  them  have  forgotten  that  there 
was  a  time  when  the  frightened  peasant  who  fled  to  the  mountain  or 
the  morass  for  safety  was  lighted  on  his  way  by  the  flames  burst- 
ing from  the  roof  of  his  cottage  :  when  the  dungeon  was  filled  with 
the  noblest  in  the  land,  and  the  scaffold  groaned  with  the  weight 
of  its  victims ;  when  terror  walked  side  by  side  with  the  paid 
informer,  and  desolation  made  its  home  in  Ireland. 

These  are  the  souvenirs  connected  with  the  name  of  England ; 
and  I  will  not  so  libel  a  gallant  people  as  to  suppose  for  a  moment 
that  they  have  any  great  anxiety  to  clasp  in  friendship  hands  red 
with  the  best  blood  of  their  native  land.  Let  me  not  be  misun- 
derstood. I  seek  no  quarrel  with  England ;  but  I  do  not  forget 
what  she  has  done,  and  I  want  no  alliance  with  her.  So  long  as 
she  attends  to  her  own  business,  and  does  not  presume  to  meddle 
with  ours,  I  am  willing  that  our  present  relations  should  continue. 
But  let  her  beware  how  she  arouses  the  animosities  now  slumbering 
in  the  American  bosom.  The  bones  and  sinews  of  the  young  giant 
of  the  west  are  fist  hardening  into  mature  manhood,  and  the  next 
time  we  meet  in  hostile  conflict,  the  proud  boast  that  the  roll  of 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


353 


the  English  drum  may  be  heard  from  the  rising  to  the  setting  sun 
will  be  nothing  but  a  tale  of  the  past.  Then,  too,  may  the  Irish 
heart  leap  with  a  proud  joy,  for  the  time  will  have  come  when  the 
epitaph  of  Emmett  may  at  last  be  written. 

We  have  all  read  recently,  and  none  of  us,  I  trust,  without 
deep  feeling,  the  opinions  of  the  venerable  statesman  whose  bodily 
infirmity  now  keeps  him  from  among  us.  Who  is  there  with  a 
higher  wisdom  than  his  ?  Who  is  there  with  a  wider  experience  ? 
Who  is  there  with  so  few  motives  to  deceive  himself  or  others  as 
to  the  true  interests  of  his  country  ?  His  voice  comes  to  us  clothed 
with  all  the  sanctity  the  grave  can  give,  with  the  added  knowledge 
of  existing  things  which  the  grave  must  take  away.  Standing 
upon  the  verge  of  two  worlds,  and  looking  back  upon  that  which 
he  is  about  to  leave,  his  heart  swelling  with  a  patriotism  little  less 
than  holy,  his  vision  clear  and  unclouded  by  the  passions  and  preju- 
dices which  dim  our  sight,  he  tells  us  that  ours  is  a  mission  of 
peace,  not  a  mission  of  blood ;  that  to  avoid  all  interference  in  the 
affairs  of  other  nations,  to  preserve  our  own  independence,  to  live 
for  America,  to  labor  for  America,  and,  if  need  be,  to  die  for 
America,  is  a  sacred  duty,  the  performance  of  which  will  best  serve 
the  cause  of  human  liberty  in  every  land  beneath  the  sun.  I  shall 
follow  his  advice.  If  my  own  judgment  differed  from  his,  I  should 
distrust  it,  and  feel  inclined  rather  to  be  governed  by  the  sugges- 
tions of  him  whom  all  men  of  every  party  have  agreed  to  name 
patriot,  statesman,  sage ! 


THE  LAST  HOURS  OE  DANIEL  WEBSTER.  —  E.  Everett. 

Among  the  many  memorable  words  which  fell  from  the  lips  of 
our  friend  just  before  they  were  closed  forever,  the  most  remarka- 
ble are  those,  —  "I  still  live."  They  attest  the  serene  compos- 
ure of  his  mind,  the  Christian  heroism  with  which  he  was  able  to 
turn  his  consciousness  in  upon  itself,  and  explore,  step  by  step,  the 
dark  passage  (dark  to  us,  but  to  him,  we  trust,  already  lighted 
from  above)  which  connects  this  world  with  the  world  to  come. 
30* 


354 


SPECIMENS  OP 


But  I  know  not  what  words  could  have  been  better  chosen  to  ex- 
press his  relation  to  the  world  he  was  leaving.  "  I  still  live. 
This  poor  dust  is  just  returning  to  the  dust  from  which  it  was 
taken  ;  but  I  feel  that  I  live  in  the  affections  of  the  people  to 
whose  services  I  have  consecrated  my  days.  I  still  live.  The  icy 
hand  of  death  is  already  laid  on  my  heart,  but  I  shall  still  live  in 
those  words  of  counsel  which  I  have  uttered  to  my  fellow-citizens, 
and  which  I  now  leave  them  as  the  last  bequest  of  a  dying  friend." 

In  the  long  and  honored  career  of  our  lamented  friend  there 
are  efforts  and  triumphs  which  will  hereafter  fill  one  of  the  bright- 
est pages  in  our  history.  But  I  greatly  err  if  the  closing  scene  — 
the  height  of  the  religious  sublime  —  does  not,  in  the  judgment  of 
other  days,  far  transcend  in  interest  the  brightest  exploits  of  public 
life.  Within  that  darkened  chamber  at  Marshfield  was  witnessed 
a  scene  of  which  we  shall  not  readily  find  the  parallel.  The 
serenity  with  which  he  stood  in  the  presence  of  the  king  of  ter- 
rors, without  trepidation  or  flutter,  for  hours  and  days  of  expecta- 
tion ;  the  thoughtfulness  for  the  public  business,  when  the  sands 
were  so  nearly  run  out ;  the  hospitable  care  for  the  reception  of 
the  friends  who  came  to  Marshfield ;  that  affectionate  and  solemn 
leave  separately  taken,  name  by  name,  of  wife,  and  children, 
and  kindred,  and  friends,  and  family,  down  to  the  humblest 
members  of  the  household  ;  the  designation  of  the  coming  day, 
then  near  at  hand,  when  "  all  that  was  mortal  of  Daniel  Webster 
would  cease  to  exist ;  "  the  dimly-reeolleeted  strains  of  the  funereal 
poetry  of  Gray, — last  faint  flash  of  the  soaring  intellect;  the  feebly 
murmured  words  of  Holy  Writ  repeated  from  the  lips  of  the 
good  physician,  who,  when  all  the  resources  of  human  art  had  been 
exhausted,  had  a  drop  of  spiritual  balm  for  the  parting  soul ;  the 

clasped  hands ;  the  dying  prayer ;  0  !  my  fellow-citizens,  this 

is  a  consummation  o\rer  which  tears  of  pious  sympathy  will  be  shod, 
ages  after  the  glories  of  the  forum  and  the  senate  are  forgotten. 

"  His  sufferings  ended  with  the  day,  yet  lived  he  at  its  close , 
And  breathed  the  long,  long  night  away  in  statue-like  repose; 
But  ere  the  sun,  in  all  his  state,  illumed  the  eastern  skies, 
He  passed  through  glory's  morning  gate,  and  walked  in  Paradise." 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


355 


THE  SACRED  TRUST  OF  LIBERTY.  —  W.  F.  Otis. 

Do  we  suppose  that  we  can  shed  our  liberty  upon  other  coun- 
tries without  exertion,  and  let  it  fall  upon  them  like  the  dew  which 
stirs  not  the  leaf  ?  No ;  liberty  must  be  long  held  suspended  over 
them  in  the  atmosphere,  by  our  unseen  and  unwearied  power. 
The  more  intense  the  heat  which  oppresses  them,  the  more  must  it 
saturate  and  surcharge  the  air,  till,  at  last,  when  the  ground  is 
parched  dry,  when  vegetation  is  crisped  up,  and  the  gasping  people 
are  ready  to  plunge  into  destruction  for  relief,  then  will  it  call 
forth  its  hosts  from  every  quarter  of  the  horizon ;  then  will  the 
sky  be  overcast,  the  landscape  darkened,  and  liberty,  at  one  peal, 
with  one  flash,  will  pour  down  her  million  streams ;  then  will  she 
lift  up  the  voice  which  echoed,  in  days  of  yore,  from  the  peaks  of 
Otter  to  the  Grand  Monadnock ;  then  will 

"  Jura  answer  through  her  misty  cloud, 
Rack  to  the  joyous  Alps,  who  call  to  her  aloud." 

We  are  asked  upon  what  is  our  reliance  in  times  of  excitement ; 
what  checks  have  we  upon  popular  violence ;  what  compensation 
for  human  infirmities ;  what  substitutes  for  bayonets,  dragoons,  and 
an  aristocracy  ?  I  answer,  the  religion  and  morality  of  the  people. 
Not  the  religion  of  the  state;  not  the  morality  of  the  fashionable. 
Thank  Heaven,  our  house  is  of  no  Philistine  architecture !  Our 
trust  —  our  only  trust  —  is  where  it  ought  to  be,  —  the  religion 
and  morality  of  the  whole  people.  Upon  that  depends,  and  ought 
to  depend,  all  that  we  enjoy  or  hope.  Our  strength  is  in  length, 
in  breadth,  and  in  depth.  It  is  in  us,  and  must  be  felt  and  exer- 
cised by  each  one  and  all  of  us,  or  our  downfall  is  doomed.  For 
we  are  the  people;  we  are  our  governors;  we  are  the  Lord's 
anointed ;  we  are  the  powers  that  be,  and  we  bear  not  the  sword 
in  vain.  And  upon  us  is  the  responsibility ;  humble  and  obscure, 
domestic  and  retiring,  secluded  and  solitary,  we  may  be,  —  but 
ours  is  still  the  great  national  trust,  go  where  we  will ;  and  to 
God  are  we,  one  and  all,  accountable.  Our  responsibility  is  with 
us ;  it  weighs  upon  us ;  it  overhangs  us,  like  the  dome  of  this 


356 


SPECIMENS  OF 


house ;  its  universal  pressure  is  the  great  principle  of  our  protec- 
tion. If  the  just  rules  of  religion  and  morality  pervade  through 
all  its  parts,  the  prodigious  weight  is  gracefully  sustained ;  but  if 
vice  and  corruption  creep  in  its  divided  circles,  the  enfeebled 
fabric  will  yawn  in  dread  chasms,  and,  crumbling,  will  overwhelm 
us  with  unutterable  ruin ! 


CHARITY  SHOULD  COMMENCE  AT  HOME.  —  /.  C.  Jones. 

If  this  Union  is  to  endure  with  all  its  brilliancy,  we  are  the 
agents  and  the  instrumentalities  by  which  it  is  to  be  accomplished ; 
and  I  submit  to  every  senator  here,  who  loves  this  Union,  —  and  I 
would  to  God  that  all  of  them  did  love  it !  —  if  they  are  ready  to 
take  a  step  which,  by  possibility,  may  endanger  this  Union.  What 
are  your  sympathies,  broad,  boundless  as  they  are,  compared  to 
the  interest,  to  the  honor,  to  the  duty,  we  owe  to  our  own  country  ? 
We  go  throughout  the  whole  world  in  quest  of  objects  of  sympathy,  ' 
forgetting  that  we  have  a  country  to  be  saved,  and  a  country  that 
is  to  be  honored,  and  made  prosperous  and  happy.  Sir,  I  love  this 
Union  in  all  its  length,  in  all  its  breadth,  in  all  its  height,  in  all 
its  depth.  Yes,  sir,  from  the  Aroostook  to  the  Rio  Grande,  from 
the  Pacific  to  the  Atlantic,  throughout  all  our  borders,  I  love  this 
Union.  For  it  I  am  ready  to  live,  and,  by  the  grace  of  God,  if 
necessary,  for  it  I  am  ready  to  die.  I  love  it,  and,  because  I  love 
it,  I  want  to  act  so  as  to  preserve  it.  Why  should  we  endanger 
this  Union  by  faction,  either  north  or  south  ?  I  have  no  affinities 
for  the  one  or  the  other.  Wherever  there  is  a  man,  or  a  commu- 
nity, or  principles  which  endanger  the  Union,  if  I  had  the  power, 
I  would  borrow  some  thunderbolt  from  the  armory  of  heaven,  and 
dash  the  accursed  wretch  into  utter  annihilation ! 

I  love  this  Union, — love  of  the  Union  is  idolatry  with  me;  and 
it  is  because  I  love  and  cherish  it  with  the  fondness  of  devoted 
affection,  that  I  am  against  any  of  those  Utopian  schemes,  any  of 
those  modern  doctrines  of  progress,  or  manifest  destiny,  or  higher 
or  lower  law,  come  from  what  sources  they  may.    Why  should 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


357 


we  go  abroad  ?  Have  we  not  enough  to  do  at  home  ?  Have  we 
not  a  field  broad  enough  for  the  sympathies  of  senators  ?  Are  all 
our  sympathies  to  be  exhausted  on  Hungary  ?  Weep  over  her 
wrongs  to  your  heart's  content ;  I  will  join  you  in  the  holy  office ; 
but  I  ask  you  to  come  back  in  the  hours  of  quietude  and  look  to 
your  own  country.  Have  you  not  enough  here  to  engage  your 
time,  to  enlist  your  talents,  to  enlist  the  talents  of  the  loftiest 
intellect  of  the  age  ?  See  your  country,  with  twenty-five  millions 
of  population,  extending  from  ocean  to  ocean, — a  territory  of 
empires  in  extent,  and  yet  not  enough  for  the  enlarged  capacity  of 
some  gentlemen.  The  world  itself  seems  scarcely  large  enough  to 
contain  their  boundless  sympathies.  It  is  enough  for  me  to  know 
that  there  are  interests  here  that  command  and  demand  my  atten- 
tion. Look  at  the  interests  of  this  country!  You  have  a  terri 
tory  almost  boundless ;  unnumbered  millions  and  hundreds  of 
millions  of  public  domain,  that  might  be  made  the  basis  upon 
which  the  hopes,  the  prosperity,  the  happiness,  the  grandeur  and 
the  glory,  of  the  mightiest  nation  upon  earth  might  be  established. 
And  yet,  sir,  that  is  a  small  matter,  that  concerns  nobody.  We 
must  go  and  weep  over  Hungary.  If  your  sympathies  are  so 
large,  go  into  the  valley  of  the  Mississippi,  that  I  have  the  honor 
in  part  to  represent.  I  see  the  honored  representative  of  my  dis- 
trict here  now.  Go  there,  and  see  the  unnumbered  and  numberless 
lives  that  are  constantly  sacrificed  to  the  imbecility  and  weakness 
of  this  government  of  ours.  There  is  a  hecatomb  of  living  spirits 
earned  down  into  the  deep  and  angry  waters  of  the  Mississippi  and 
its  tributaries.  There  is  no  sympathy  for  them.  We  must  go 
abroad,  and  shed  tears  of  blood  and  compassion  for  the  sufferings 
of  Hungary.  Better  come  home,  and  weep  over  widows  and 
orphans,  left  husbandless  and  fatherless  by  the  neglect  of  the  gov- 
ernment to  give  protection,  and  to  improve  her  inland  and  her 
external  commerce.  That  is  enough  to  engage  the  time  and  the 
talents  of  the  whole  Senate  — of  the  loftiest  genius  that  ever  lived. 
Yet  these  are  very  small  matters  —  we  may  forget  them  all !  We 
have  a  sea-coast  almost  boundless,  with  harbors  to  improve,  inter- 
ests to  protect,  thousands  and  tens  of  thousands  of  American  citi- 


358 


SPECIMENS  OB 


zens  languishing  for  the  want  of  that  paternal  regard  which  the 
government  ought  to  extend  them,  in  giving  protection  to  the 
honest  labor  of  the  country.  All  that  moves  no  sympathetic  chord 
in  those  hearts  that  sympathize  with  the  oppressed  of  all  nations. 
Come  home,  gentlemen,  come  home,  and  let  us  see  if  we  cannot  do 
something  here.  When  we  shall  have  made  our  own  people  happy 
and  prosperous,  when  the  treasury  shall  be  overflown,  when  the 
navy  shall  find  nothing  to  do,  when  the  army  shall  be  a  burden 
upon  our  hands,  then  you  may  go  out  and  fight  the  battles  of 
other  people.  But  first  let  us  establish  ourselves  upon  a  basis  not 
only  honorable,  but  safe  and  perpetual. 

I  hope  to  see  this  government  go  on  in  the  course  in  which  our 
fathers  guided  it.  I  hope  to  see  her  growing  stronger  and  stronger 
every  day.  My  sympathies  for  the  oppressed  of  other  nations  are 
as  acute  as  those  of  other  gentlemen ;  but  I  remember  that  I  have 
a  country  myself,  and  that,  while  I  sympathize  with  the  oppressed 
of  other  nations,  my  first  duty  is  to  my  own  country.  When  I  go 
back,  and  inquire  what  have  been  the  achievements,  what  have 
been  the  results  that  have  flown  from  the  policy  of  our  fathers,  I 
confess  that  I  am  astounded  that  gentlemen  should  choose  to 
change.  Why,  from  feeble  colonies,  thirteen  in  number,  and  threi 
millions  in  population,  we  have  grown  to  be  a  people  of  about 
twenty-five  millions,  with  thirty-one  states,  instead  of  thirteen. 
With  such  results  as  these,  so  stupendous  and  overwhelming,  I 
ask,  is  it  possible  that  any  American  can  desire  to  change  the 
policy  which  has  produced  such  results?  As  for  myself,  I  desire 
to  see  this  country  go  onward.  I  would  invoke  the  spirit  of  Him 
who  seems  to  preside  over  the  deliberations  of  the  Senate,  to 
watch,  and  guard,  and  protect,  and  defend  the  institutions  of  our 
country.  I  hope  that  the  column  which  has  been  laid  by  Wash- 
ington may  go  on  rising  higher  and  higher,  and  higher  still,  until 
its  proud  head  shall  have  pierced  the  clouds  of  heaven,  and  be 
bathed  in  eternal  light!  From  its  proud  summit  may  the  light 
and  the  truth  of  freedom  and  liberty  go  out  into  the  whole  w<  rl  '., 
until  all  its  dark  recesses  shall  be  enlightened  by  the  revivifying 
rays  that  flow  from  it,  and  all  the  world  be  filled  with  glory,  and 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


359 


be  wrapped  in  one  eternal  flame  of  liberty  and  freedom,  now  and 
forever  ! 


DEATH  OF  DANIEL  WEBSTER.  —  /.  C.  Park. 

Daniel  Webster,  tbe  patriot,  the  jurist,  the  statesman,  is  no 
more.  I  rise  to  pronounce  no  panegyric,  no  eulogy !  This  is 
neither  the  time  nor  occasion ;  nor  am  I  the  man.  When  the 
avalanche  has  fallen  from  the  mountain  top,  when  the  thunder- 
bolt has  cleft  the  forest-oak,  deep  silence  succeeds  the  shock ;  and 
now  the  public  pulse  has  ceased  its  throbbings,  and  holy,  silent  awe 
is  the  loudest  oratory.  Time  will  be  when  we  shall  awake  to  a 
full  realization  of  the  event;  and  then  eloquent  lips  will  pour 
forth  a  nation's  feelings. 

How  many  thousands  sympathize  in  the  emotions  of  this  hour ! 
The  news,  lightning-winged,  has  already  pervaded  the  continent. 
The  fisherman  on  the  banks  pauses  in  his  toil  to  echo  back  the 
wail  which  reaches  him  from  the  shore.  The  trapper  in  the  val- 
leys of  the  Ilocky  Mountains  catches  it,  as  it  rolls  across  the 
prairies.  The  industry  of  the  nation  feels  that  it  has  lost  its  best 
friend ;  and  even  on  the  thrones  of  Europe  the  monarchs  of  the 
Old  World  tremble  as  they  learn  that  that  master-spirit,  which 
has  wielded  a  moral  power  over  the  destinies  of  nations  more  potent 
than  their  armed  legions  or  their  diplomatic  machinery,  now  stands 
with  the  prophets  of  old  and  apostles  of  truth  in  humble  adoration 
before  the  throne  of  Omnipotence  ! 

Around  us,  in  our  very  midst,  how  everything  speaks  to  us 
of  him  !  Yonder  monument  to  Liberty,  baptized  in  the  blood  of 
his  eloquence ;  yonder  Pilgrim  Rock,  consecrated  by  his  lips,  in 
the  spirit  of  Puritan  truth ;  the  very  landmarks  and  boundaries 
of  our  land,  from  the  bleak  north-east  to  the  sultry  south-west, 
are  established  under  his  wise,  far-seeing  guidance.  Not  a  water- 
fall or  a  cataract  in  all  New  England,  rendered  useful  to  mankind 
by  those  discreet  measures  which  always  met  his  cordial  support, 
that  did  not  seem,  on  yesterday's  holy  morn,  to  have  rolled  its 
course  seaward  with  a  more  subdued  and  plaintive  murmur. 


360 


SPECIMENS  OF 


The  Indian,  when  his  chief  goes  on  his  long  pilgrimage  to  the 
spirit-land,  buries  with  him  his  implements,  his  tomahawk  and 
arrows.  We,  of  a  Christian  faith,  bury  far  away  from  our  chief  the 
barbed  arrows  of  political  strife  and  party  rancor,  and  gaze  with 
mournful  gratitude  on  the  countless  benefits  which  he  has  con- 
ferred upon  us.  Three-score  years  and  ten  he  has  been  spared 
to  us.  Thirty,  at  least,  of  the  number,  he  has  been  leaving  the 
impress  of  his  gigantic  intellect  upon  every  prominent  measure 
which  has  conduced  to  our  country's  advancement  and  prosperity. 

But  I  forbear.  The  glorious  sun  has  set.  Unclouded  to  the 
last,  its  latest  beams  were  of  meridian  splendor,  and  the  twilight 
of  good  influences  which  it  leaves  will  endure  forever. 


ENGLAND'S  DISLIKE  OF  AMERICA.  —  /.  Bell. 

The  next  great  war  which  is  to  fill  the  world  with  its  desola- 
tions will  be  a  war  between  the  old  continent  and  the  new ;  be- 
tween the  Old  World  and  the  New  World ;  between  the  ideas, 
the  principles,  and  the  interests,  and  the  passions,  of  European  or 
eastern  civilization,  and  the  ideas,  the  principles,  the  interests  and 
the  passions,  belonging  to  the  new  and  more  vigorous  civilization  of 
the  continent  of  America.  This  is  the  natural  order  of  progress  in 
the  civilization  of  the  world.  The  jealousy  of  all  Europe  has  been 
effectually  roused  and  excited  by  the  late  and  vast  accession  to 
our  territory,  foreshadowing  in  its  results  the  profits  and  resources 
of  the  trade  of  the  gorgeous  East.  As  long  as  this  republic  shall 
continue  united  and  prosperous,  it  must  continue  to  be  a  standing 
rebuke  to  despotic  power.  It  will  haunt  the  dreams  of  the 
enthroned  masters  of  Europe  like  the  ghosts  of  murdered  princes, 
and  they  can  never  be  at  heart's  ease  until  they  shall  have  made 
one  great  and  united  effort  to  crush  this  disturber  of  their  repose. 
Principles  of  government  so  diverse,  adverse  interests  so  deep  and 
imperishable,  cannot  exist  on  continents  between  which  the  barrier 
of  an  ocean  is  removed  by  modern  inventions,  without  bringing 
jealousies,  rivalries,  hatreds  and  collisions,  which,  sooner  or  later, 
must  result  in  war,  —  fierce,  protracted  war,  —  which  can  only  be 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


361 


terminated  by  the  mutual  exhaustion  of  the  parties,  or  the  final 
triumph  of  one  over  the  other. 

A  voice  whispers  me,  Where  will  England  be  in  a  contest 
between  the  despotic  powers  of  the  continent  and  this  republic  ? 
What  guarantee  have  we  that  she  would  be  disposed  to  interpose 
her  broad  shield  between  America  and  her  assailants  ?  Will 
kindred  race  and  language  be  a  guarantee  of  the  friendship  of 
England?  Never,  sir,  as  long  as  the  story  of  the  Revolution 
shall  be  handed  down ;  never,  while  the  brightest  pages  of  our  his- 
tory shall  still  be  those  which  record  our  triumphs  over  British 
valor  and  British  domination.  The  dire  and  lasting  hate  engen- 
dered by  family  feuds  is  proverbial ;  and  the  lasting  enmity  of 
Englaud  is  decreed  by  an  inexorable  law. 

But  may  not  kindred  institutions  be  a  guarantee  of  her  alliance 
and  protection  ?  No !  The  throne,  the  altar,  the  aristocracy,  the 
whole  governing  race,  including  the  wealthy  middle  classes  of  Eng- 
land, have  as  great  a  horror  of  republicanism,  and  of  the  levelling 
theories  of  the  fierce  democracy  of  the  continent,  as  the  Czar  of 


closely  the  bonds  of  amity  between  the  two  countries.  Neither 
the  cause  of  liberty,  nor  any  interest  in  the  diffusion  of  constitu- 
tional monarchies,  has  been  the  basis  of  British  policy  in  this  age, 
or  in  any  other,  in  her  relations  with  the  continent,  or  with  Amer- 
ica. These  were  not  the  causes  of  her  involvement  in  the  last 
general  war  of  Europe.  They  were  purely  and  simply  the  protec- 
tion of  her  own  interests  and  her  own  safety. 

Will  her  trade,  will  her  rich  commercial  connections  with  the 
United  States,  bind  her  to  our  cause  against  the  powers  of  the  con- 
tinent ?  I  still  answer,  unhesitatingly,  No !  If  there  is  one  great 
fact  in  the  future  history  of  the  world  that  can  be  foretold  with 
greater  certainty  than  any  other,  it  is  the  great  conflict,  not  now, 
but  soon  to  be,  between  Great  Britain  and  the  United  States,  for 
the  empire  of  the  seas,  and  the  command  of  the  trade  of  the  world. 
Instead  of  becoming  our  ally  in  a  war  with  the  despotic  powers  of 


31 


362 


SPECIMENS  OF 


the  continent,  Great  Britain  would  have  cause  to  exult ;  and  let 
me  say  that  she  has  at  this  moment  cause  to  exult,  and  her  far- 
seeing  statesmen  doubtless  do  exult,  in  the  dawning  of  a  state  of 
tilings  which  may  place  all  the  powers  of  the  continent,  even 
Russia,  —  heretofore  in  her  policy  friendly  to  the  United  States, 
—  in  an  attitude  of  lasting  hostility  and  resentment  to  this  repub- 
lic. Great  Britain  may  see,  in  recent  events  on  the  continent 
and  in  this  country,  causes  equally  new  and  unexpected,  which 
may  prolong  her  power  and  her  ocean  dominion  to  a  date  in  the 
future  far  beyond  all  former  hope  or  calculation.  She  would 
rejoice  to  see  our  commerce  cut  up,  and  our  youthful  energies  par- 
alyzed and  crushed,  under  the  weight  of  a  European  combination. 
She  may  stand  off,  to  be  sure ;  but,  if  the  powers  on  the  continent 
will  only  pursue  a  pacific  policy  towards  her, —  if  they  will  keep 
their  ports  and  commercial  marts  open,  on  liberal  terms,  to  her 
trade  and  manufactures,  —  they  will  have  her  free  consent  to  model 
their  governments  upon  principles  of  the  purest  absolutism ;  they 
may  extinguish  every  spark  of  liberty  among  their  own  subjects, 
and  crumble  into  dust  every  republic  on  the  globe. 


NEW  ENGLAND  AND  VIRGINIA.  —  R.  C.  Winthrop. 

New  England  does  not  require  to  have  other  parts  of  the  coun- 
try cast  into  shade,  in  order  that  the  brightness  of  her  own  early 
days  may  be  seen  and  admired.  Least  of  all  would  any  son  of 
New  England  be  found  uttering  a  word  in  wanton  disparagement 
of  "  our  noble,  patriotic  sister  colony,  Virginia,"  as  she  was  once 
justly  termed  by  the  patriots  of  Faneuil  Hall.  There  are  circum- 
stances of  peculiar  and  beautiful  correspondence  in  the  careers  of 
Virginia  and  New  England,  which  must  ever  constitute  a  bond  of 
sympathy,  affection  and  pride,  between  their  children.  Not  only 
did  they  form  respectively  the  great  northern  and  southern  ral ly- 
ing-points of  civilization  on  this  continent,  —  not  only  was  the  most 
friendly  competition,  or  the  most  cordial  cooperation,  as  circum- 
stances allowed,  kept  up  between  them  during  their  early  colonial 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


existence,  —  but  who  forgets  the  generous  emulation,  the  noble 
rivalry,  with  which  they  continually  challenged  and  seconded  each 
other  in  resisting  the  first  beginnings  of  British  aggression,  in  the 
persons  of  their  James  Otises  and  Patrick  Henrys  ?  Who  forgets 
that,  while  that  resistance  was  first  brought  to  a  practical  test  in 
New  England,  at  Lexington,  and  Concord,  and  Bunker  Hill,  for- 
tune, as  if  resolved  to  restore  the  balance  of  renown  between  the 
two,  reserved  for  the  Yorktown  of  Virginia  the  last  crowning  vic- 
tory of  independence  ?  Who  forgets  that,  while  the  hand  by  which 
the  original  declaration  of  that  independence  was  drafted  was  fur- 
nished by  Virginia,  the  tongue  by  which  the  adoption  of  that 
instrument  was  defended  and  secured  was  supplied  by  New  Eng- 
land, —  a  bond  of  common  glory,  upon  which  not  death  alone 
seemed  to  set  his  seal,  but  Deity,  I  had  almost  said,  to  affix  an 
immortal  sanction,  when  the  spirits  by  which  that  hand  and  that 
tongue  were  moved  were  caught  up  together  to  the  clouds  on  the 
same  great  day  of  the  nation's  jubilee  : 


CHARACTER  OF  DANIEL  WEBSTER.  —  R.  Choate. 

With  the  peace  of  1815,  his  more  cherished  public  labors  began; 
and  thenceforward  has  he  devoted  himself  —  the  ardor  of  his  civil 
youth,  the  energies  of  his  maturest  manhood,  the  autumnal  wisdom 
of  the  ripened  years  —  to  the  offices  of  legislation  and  diplomacy ; 
of  preserving  the  peace,  keeping  the  honor,^establishing  the  bound- 
aries, and  vindicating  the  neutral  rights,  of  his  country  ;  restoring 
a  sound  currency,  and  laying  its  foundation  sure  and  deep  ;  in  up- 
holding public  credit ;  in  promoting  foreign  commerce  and  domestic 
industry  ;  in  developing  our  uncounted  material  resources  ;  giving 
the  lake  and  river  to  trade,  and  vindicating  and  interpreting  the 
constitution  and  the  law.  On  all  these  subjects,  on  all  measures 
practically  in  any  degree  affecting  them,  he  has  inscribed  his  opin- 
ions, and  left  the  traces  of  his  hand.  Everywhere  the  philosophi- 
cal and  patient  statesman  and  thinker  will  find  that  he  has  been 
before  him,  lighting  the  way,  sounding  the  abyss.  His  weighty 
language,  his  sagacious  warnings,  his  great  maxims  of  empire,  will 


3b4 


SPECIMENS  OF 


be  raised  to  view,  and  live  to  be  read  when  the  final  catastrophe 
shall  lift  the  granite  foundation  in  fragments  from  its  bed. 

Mr.  Websjter,  by  his  acts,  words,  thoughts,  or  the  events  of  his 
life,  associated  himself  forever  in  the  memory  of  all  of  us  with 
every  historical  incident, —  or,  at  least,  with  every  historical  epoch, 
—  with  every  policy,  with  every  glory,  with  every  great  name,  and 
fundamental  institution,  and  grand  or  beautiful  image,  which  are 
peculiarly  and  properly  American.  Look  back  to  the  planting  of 
Plymouth  and  Jamestown  ;  to  the  various  scenes  of  colonial  life  in 
peace  and  war  ;  to  the  opening  and  march  and  close  of  the  Revo- 
lutionary drama  ;  to  the  age  of  the  constitution  ;  to  Washington, 
and  Franklin,  and  Adams,  and  Jeffersou  ;  to  the  whole  train  of 
causes,  from  the  Reformation  downward,  which  prepared  us  to  be 
republicans ;  to  that  other  train  of  causes  which  led  us  to  be  union- 
ists;—  look  round  on  field,  workshop  and  deck,  and  hear  the  music 
of  labor  rewarded,  fed  and  protected  ;  look  on  the  bright  sisterhood 
of  the  states,  each  singing  as  a  seraph  in  her  motion,  yet  blending  in  a 
common  beam  and  swelling  a  common  harmony,  and  there  is  nothing 
which  does  not  bring  him  by  some  tie  to  the  memory  of  America. 

We  seem  to  see  his  form,  and  hear  his  deep,  grave  speech,  every- 
where. By  some  felicity  of  his  personal  life  ;  by  some  wise,  deep, 
or  beautiful  word,  spoken  or  written  ;  by  some  service  of  his  own, 
or  some  commemoration  of  the  services  of  others,  —  it  has  come  to 
pass  that  "  our  granite  hills,  our  inland  seas,  and  prairies,  and 
fresh,  unbounded,  magnificent  wilderness  ;"  our  encircling  ocean  , 
the  rock  of  the  Pilgrims; ;  our  new-born  sister  of  the  "Pacific;  our 
popular  assemblies ;  our  free  schools,  all  our  cherished  doctrines  of 
education,  and  of  the  influence  of  religion,  and  material  policy  and 
law  and  the  constitution,  give  us  back  his  name.  What  American 
landscape  will  you  look  on,  what  subject  of  American  interest  will 
you  study,  what  source  of  hope  or  of  anxiety  as  an  American 
will  you  acknowledge,  that  it  docs  not  recall  him  ? 

I  shall  not  venture,  in  this  rapid  and  general  recollection  of  Mr. 
Webster*  to  attempt  to  analyze  that  intellectual  power  which  all 
admit  to  have  been  so  extraordinary,  or  to  compare  or  contrast  it 
With  the  menial  greatness  of  others,  in  variety  or  degree,  of  the 
living  or  the  dead  ;  or  even  to  attempt  to  appreciate  exactly,  and 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


365 


in  reference  to  canons  of  art,  his  single  attribute  of  eloquence. 
Consider,  however,  the  remarkable  phenomenon  of  excellence  in 
three  unkindred,  one  might  have  thought  incompatible,  forms  of 
public  speech  ;  that  of  the  forum,  with  its  double  audience  of 
bench  and  jury,  of  the  halls  of  legislation,  and  of  the  most  thronged 
and  tumultuous  assemblies  of  the  people. 

Consider,  further,  that  this  multiform  eloquence,  exactly  as  his 
words  fell,  became  at  once  so  much  accession  to  permanent  litera- 
ture, in  the  strictest  sense  solid,  attractive  and  rich,  and  ask  how 
often  in  the  history  of  public  life  such  a  thing  has  been  exempli- 
fied. Recall  what  pervaded  all  these  forms  of  display,  and  every 
effort  in  every  form  ;  —  that  union  of  naked  intellect  in  its  largest 
measure,  which  penetrates  to  the  exact  truth  of  the  matter  in 
hand  by  intuition  or  by  inference,  and  discerns  everything  which 
may  make  it  intelligible,  probable  and  credible,  to  another,  with  an 
emotional  and  moral  nature  profound,  passionate,  and  ready  to 
kindle,  and  with  imagination  enough  to  supply  a  hundred-fuld 
more  of  illustration  and  aggrandizement  than  his  taste  suffered 
him  to  accept ;  that  union  of  greatness  of  soul  with  depth  of  heart, 
which  made  his  speaking  almost  more  aji  exhibition  of  character 
than  of  mere  genius  ;  the  style  not  merely  pure,  clear  Saxon,  but 
so  constructed,  so  numerous  as  far  as  becomes  prose,  so  forcible,  so 
abounding  in  unlabored  felicities,  the  words  so  choice,  the  epithet 
so  pictured,  the  matter  absolute  truth,  or  the  most  exact  and 
spacious  resemblance  the  human  wit  can  devise;  the  treatment 
of  the  subject,  if  you  have  regard  to  the  kind  of  truth  he  had  to 
handle, — political,  ethical,  legal,  —  as  deep,  as  complete,  as  Paley's, 
or  Locke's,  or  Butler's,  or  Alexander  Hamilton's,  of  their  subjects, 
yet  that  depth  and  that  completeness  of  sense,  made  transparent  as 
though  crystal  waters,  all  embodied  in  harmonious  or  well-composed 
periods,  —  raised  on  winged  language,  vivified,  fused,  and  poured 
along  in  a  tide  of  emotion  fervid,  and  incapable  to  be  withstood. 

I  should  indicate  it  as  an  influence  of  his  life,  acts  and  opinions, 
that  it  was  in  an  extraordinary  degree  uniformly  and  liberally  con- 
servative. He  saw  with  vision  as  of  a  prophet  that  if  our  system 
of  united  government  can  be  maintained  till  a  nationality  shall  be 

31* 


36G 


SPECIMENS  OF 


generated  of  due  intensity  and  due  comprehension,  a  glory  indeed 
millennial,  a  progress  without  end,  a  triumph  of  humanity  hitherto 
unseen,  were  ours. 

Standing  on  the  rock  of  Plymouth,  he  bid  distant  generations 
hail ;  and  saw  them  rising,  "  demanding  life,  impatient  from  the 
skies,"  from  what  then  were  "  fresh,  unbounded,  magnificent  wil- 
dernesses," from  the  shore  of  the  great,  tranquil  sea,  not  yet  become 
ours.  But  observe  to  what  he  welcomes  them,  by  what  he  would 
bless  them.  It  is  to  "  good  government."  It  is  to  "  treasures  of 
science  and  delights  of  learning."  It  is  to  the  "  sweets  of  domes- 
tic life,  the  immeasurable  good  of  a  rational  existence,  the  immor- 
tal hopes  of  Christianity,  the  light  of  everlasting  truth." 

It  will  be  happy  if  the  wisdom  and  temper  of  his  administration 
of  our  foreign  affairs  shall  preside  in  the  time  which  is  at  hand. 
Sobered,  instructed  by  the  examples  and  warnings  of  all  the  past, 
he  yet  gathered  from  the  study  and  comparison  of  ail  the  eras  that 
there  is  a  silent  progress  of  the  race,  without  pause,  without  haste, 
without  return,  to  which  the  counsellings  of  history  are  to  be 
accommodated  by  a  wise  philosophy.  More  than,  or  as  much  as, 
that  of  any  of  our  public  characters,  his  statesmanship  was  one 
which  recognized  a  Europe,  an  Old  World,  but  yet  grasped  the  cap- 
ital idea  of  the  American  position,  and  deduced  from  it  the  whole 
fashion  and  color  of  its  policy ;  which  discerned  that  we  are  to 
play  a  high  part  in  human  affairs,  but  discerned,  also,  what  part  it 
is,  —  peculiar,  distant,  distinct  and  grand,  as  our  hemisphere;  an 
influence,  not  a  contact,  —  the  stage,  the  drama,  the  catastrophe, 
all  but  the  audience,  all  our  own ;  and  if  ever  he  felt  himself 
at  a  loss,  he  consulted  reverently  the  genius  of  Washington. 

Among  the  eulogists  who  have  just  uttered  the  eloquent  sorrow 
of  England  at  the  death  of  the  Great  Duke,  one  has  employed  an 
image  and  an  idea  which  I  venture  to  modify  and  appropriate. 

"  The  Northmen's  image  of  death  is  finer  than  that  of  other 
climes  ;  no  skeleton,  but  a  gigantic  figure,  that  envelops  men 
within  the  massive  folds  of  its  dark  garment.  Webster  seems  so 
enshrouded  from  us,  as  the  last  of  the  mighty  three,  themselves 
following  a  mighty  series,  the  greatest  closing  the  procession. 
The  robe  draws  round  him,  and  the  era  is  past." 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


367 


Yet  how  much  there  is  which  that  all-ample  fold  shall  not  hide ! 
The  recorded  wisdom,  the  great  example,  the  assured  immortality. 
They  speak  of  monuments  : 

"  Nothing  can  cover  his  high  fame  but  Heaven. 
No  pyramid  sets  o2"  his  memories, 
But  the  eternal  substance  of  his  greatness  ;  » 
To  which  I  leave  him." 


THE  BACKWOODSMEN.  —  A.  Burlingame. 

The  great  spirit  of  the  backwoods  has  been  felt  in  our  country's 
destiny.  We  have  heard  its  manly  eloquence  in  Congress,  where 
it  has  sometimes  seized  with  rude  hand  the  sceptre  of  power. 
Give  it  a  more  cultivated  intelligence,  impress  it  with  a  higher 
morality,  and  it  will  breathe  its  thoughts  round  the  world  in  lan- 
guage worthy  of  Milton,  Chatham  and  Shakspeare. 

I  have  spoken  warmly  of  the  backwoodsmen,  for  I  could  do  no 
otherwise.  Their  strong  arms  shielded  my  boyhood,  and  my 
memory  is  full  of  their  wild  border  tales.  The  bold  lines  of  their 
character  are  fast  fading  out.  They  themselves  are  falling  like 
autumn  leaves.  In  a  few  more  years  "the  places  which  now 
know  them  shall  know  them  no  more  forever."  Already  the 
sound  of  the  settler's  axe  and  the  hunter's  rifle  grows  fainter  in  the 
forest.  The  "  voyageur's  "  songs  have  died  away  from  our  western 
waters,  Cone,  too,  are  the  "  rangers  of  the  woods,"  with  their 
bright  eyes  and  irrepressible  spirits ;  and  the  poor  Indians,  those 
down-trodden  children  of  nature,  are  pressing  with  their  flying 
feet  the  leaves  of  a  still  more  distant  wilderness.  The  railroad 
track  has  obliterated  the  Indian  trail,  and  the  iron  horse  awakens 
new  echoes  in  the  forest.  Upon  the  broad  foundations  laid  by  the 
hardy  woodsmen  in  the  midst  of  unutterable  sorrows,  and  along 
the  huge  paths  beaten  by  buffaloes'  hoofs  before  the  courage  of 
man  struggled  with  the  wilderness,  there  has  sprung  up  a  civiliza- 
tion, which,  for  energy  and  magnificence,  is  without  a  parallel  in 
the  world's  history.  It  outruns  the  imagination  of  the  poet,  who 
tells  us  —  4 


80S 


SPECIMENS  OF 


"A  thousand  years  scarce  serve  to  form  a  state." 

In  our  time,  states  are  born  of  the  wild  wood  in  a  day,  with 
rights  the  Romans  never  knew,  and  clothed  with  more  than  the 
thunders  of  Olympian  Jove.  0  !  little  thought  Boone  and  a  few 
straggling  hunters,  as  they  passed  through  the  gap  of  the  Allegha- 
nies,  long  ago,  and  hid  themselves  in  the  reeds  fringing  the  great 
ri  vers  or  the  west,  that  they  were  the  van  of  a  mighty  empire. 
Little  thought  Dr.  Cutler,  when  he  went  forth  from  Beverly,  in 
Massachusetts,  and  first  settled  in  Ohio,  that  the  first  spot  where 
his  feet  should  find  rest  would  become  the  home  of  commerce,  and 
the  birth-place  of  ships  swifter  and  grander  than  those  which 
went  forth  annually  from  his  early  home  to  the  land  of  the  orient. 
Little  thought  the  brave  men  who  filled  the  valleys  of  the  Mus- 
kingum, the  Maumee,  the  Wabash,  and  the  Kaskaskias,  that  ere 
the  grass  would  grow  green  upon  their  graves,  mighty  cities  would 
spring  up  where  the  wolf  howled ;  that  the  Christian's  shining 
cross  would  stand  where  the  Indian  told  his  love  and  breathed  his 
prayer  to  the  offended  Manito ;  that  the  lakes,  so  calm,  so  still, 
more  beautiful  than  the  blue  sea  beyond  the  pillars  of  Hercules, 
would  whiten  with  sails,  and  literally  murmur  with  the  rush  of 
keels ;  that  the  rivers  upon  which  they  gazed  in  silent  wonder, 
whose  sources  were  away  in  hills  beyond  the  regions  of  their  imag- 
inations, would  bear  on  their  bosoms  the  rich  argosies  of  ten  mil- 
lions of  people ;  and  that  steamboats,  not  then  born  in  the  brain 
of  their  inventor,  would  go  roaring  down  their  waters  with  a  thou- 
sand men  on  their  decks.  These  things  they  have  seen,  —  we  have 
seen.  They  are  more  like  magic,  or  the  dream  of  some  fairy  tale, 
than  like  reality.  Yet  still  the  mighty  stream  of  emigration  pours 
westward.  "At  first  a  little  rivulet  winding  its  way  through  some 
beautiful  valley,  now  fed  by  a  thousand  springs  welling  up  the 
wayside,  anon  increased  by  other  rills  mingling  with  its  smiling 
waters,  it  has  flowed  on,  and  rolled  onward,  widening  and  deepen- 
ing its  channel,  until  now  it  laves  with  its  rising  flood  the  base  of 
the  stony  mountains,"  Ay,  it  has  overleaped  them,  and  this  day 
pours  its  wild  torrent  of  living,  breathing  humanity  upon  the  far- 
ofi'  shores  of  the  peaceful  Pacific.    The  star  of  empire  has  passed 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


369 


the  Atlantic  slope,  and  now  stands  glittering  above  the  summit  of 
the  Alleghanies.  In  a  few  more  years  it  will  have  sped  its  way 
to  the  regions  of  the  setting  sun ;  for  true  is  it  now,  as  in  the  days 
of  Bishop  Berkeley,  that 

"  "Westward  the  course  of  empire  takes  its  way." 


THE  EXPERIMENT  OF  SELF-GOVERNMENT.  — /.  P.  Hale. 

We  live  in  a  remarkable  age  of  the  world.  And  it  would  seem, 
casting  our  eyes  back,  by  the  aid  of  history,  over  the  long  vista  of 
ages  that  are  past,  as  if  the  Divine  Ruler  had  said  that  he  would 
not  forever  be  wearied  with  the  importunities  of  man  for  liberty ; 
but  that  here  he  would  make  the  best  experiment.  And,  as  if  to 
render  everything  favorable  for  the  fullest  and  fairest  experiment 
to  exhibit  the  capacity  of  man  for  self-government,  in  the  fulness 
of  time  the  eye  of  science  disclosed  a  new  continent,  to  which  the 
lovers  of  liberty  could  resort,  to  lay  deep  the  foundations  of  the 
temple  of  liberty  that  they  were  about  to  erect. 

It  is  a  great  mistake  to  say  that  the  experiment  has  succeeded. 
It  has  not  yet  succeeded.  We  are  now  making  it.  We  are  now 
trying  it.  Why,  the  old  men  of  the  Revolution,  thank  God  !  have 
not  all  gone  down  to  their  graves  in  peace.  And  shall  we  pre- 
sumptuously boast,  and  say  that  we  have  succeeded  in  the  great 
experiment  which  has  baffled  the  ingenuity  and  the  piety  of  men 
in  all  the  aggs  that  have  gone  before  us  ?  No,  my  friends  !  It 
has  devolved  upon  us,  with  all  the  lights  of  a  new  era  shining 
upon  us,  —  with  the  friends  of  civil  and  religious  liberty,  the  world 
over,  watching  with  painful  interest  every  step  of  our  progress,  — 
to  decide  for  ourselves  and  the  world  whether  man  is  capable  of 
self-government.  And  if  we  fail,  we  fail  not  alone  for  ourselves, 
but  for  those  that  shall  come  after  us. 

When,  in  the  progress  of  ages,  the  traveller  from  distant  climes 
and  shores  shall  visit  the  places  we  now  occupy,  shall  that  traveller 
of  some  future  century,  like  him  that  now  wanders  over  the  plains 
of  Greece,  find  his  interest  only  kept  alive  because  he  is  wandering 


370 


SPECIMENS  OP 


amidst  the  monuments  of  a  liberty  that  is  dead,  a  patriotism  that 
is  departed,  and  a  virtue  that  is  gone  ?  Or  shall  it  be  that  he  is 
doubly  interested  because  he  finds  living  here,  fresh  and  perennial, 
the  streams  of  liberty  and  of  truth  ?  These  are  questions  that  we 
may  ask  to-day.    The  answer  is  with  the  future. 

If  we  were  to  undertake  to  compare  ourselves  with  our  fathers, 
—  we  are  fond  of  saying  it  is  a  progressive  age,  and  that  we  are  a 
progressive  people,  but  if  wo  were  to  undertake  to  compare  ourselves 
with  the  old  men  of  the  Revolution,  after  the  most  liberal  allowances 
that  self-love  could  suggest,  how  would  the  account  stand  ?  Have 
we  improved  upon  their  ideas  of  liberty  of  thought,  and  of  inde- 
pendence of  private  judgment,  which  could  stand  unawed  before  the 
face  of  power,  and  announce  deliberately  the  possession  of  a  pro- 
scribed opinion  against  which  the  penalty  of  death  was  denounced, 
and  then  declare  that  such  conduct  as  that  opinion  demanded  and 
that  faith  required  should  be  pursued  at  any  hazard  and  at  every 
peril  ?  It  is  true,  my  friends,  that  we  have  no  dread  sovereign 
king  interposing  his  royal  prerogative  as  a  terror  against  the  ex- 
pression of  our  free  thoughts.  But  let  us  not  natter  ourselves  that 
kings  are  the  only  foes  that  stand  in  the  way  of  free  principles. 

It  is  not  to  be  denied,  and  it  is  not  to  be  winked  out  of  sight,  that 
there  are  adverse  influences  at  work  in  our  midst  to-day.  We  have 
not  realized  the  full  idea  of  our  fathers.  We  have  not  fully  come 
up  to  the  idea  that  the  great  rights  for  which  they  nobly  contended 
were  maintained  by  them  because  they  were  conferred  by  God ; 
not  because  they  were  the  gift  of  any  government,  of  any  prince,  of 
any  potentate,  but  were  inalienable  in  man.  "We  have  failed  to 
come  up  to  that.  I  do  not  propose  to  call  away  your  thoughts 
and  reflections  from  the  joy  which  the  return  of  such  an  anniver- 
sary should  occasion  in  every  breast ;  and,  therefore,  will  leave  this 
subject,  expressing  a  confident  hope  and  a  firm  faith  that  the  mist 
which  may  for  a  time  envelop,  and  the  clouds  which  may  tempo- 
rarily hover  around  the  beams  of  liberty,  shall  burst  away.  The 
eye  of  faith  can  already  see  a  dawning  of  a  more  glorious  sun  that 
is  about  rising  to  illuminate  the  whole  heavens.  The  ear  of  faith 
can  already  hear  the  shouts  of  the  thousands  that  shall  go  up  to 


A  M  Em  C  AN   ELOQUEN  CE. 


371 


heaven  when  the  principles  of  the  Declaration  of  American  Inde- 
pendence shall  have  exerted  their  influences  broadcast  as  the  glo- 
rious light  of  heaven  in  which  we  to-day  rejoice ! 


RESISTANCE  TO  OPPRESSION  IN  ITS  RUDIMENTS.  —  D.  Webster. 

Every  encroachment,  great  or  small,  is  important  enough  to 
awaken  the  attention  of  those  who  are  intrusted  with  the  preserva- 
tion of  a  constitutional  government.  We  are  not  to  wait  till  great 
public  mischiefs  come,  till  the  government  is  overthrown,  or  liberty 
itself  put  in  extreme  jeopardy.  We  should  not  be  worthy  sons  of 
our  fathers,  were  we  so  to  regard  great  questions  affecting  the  general 
freedom.  Those  fathers  accomplished  the  Revolution  on  a  strict 
question  of  principle.  The  Parliament  of  Great  Britain  asserted 
a  right  to  tax  the  colonies  in  all  cases  whatsoever  ;  and  it  was  pre- 
cisely on  this  question  that  they  made  the  Revolution  turn.  The 
amount  of  taxation  was  trifling,  but  the  claim  itself  was  incon- 
sistent with  liberty ;  and  that  was,  in  their  eyes,  enough.  It  was 
against  the  recital  of  an  act  of  Parliament,  rather  than  against  any 
suffering  under  its  enactments,  that  they  took  up  arms.  They 
went  to  war  against  a  preamble.  They  fought  seven  years  against 
a  declaration.  They  poured  out  their  treasures  and  their  blood 
like  water,  in  a  contest,  in  opposition  to  an  assertion,  which  those 
less  sagacious  and  not  so  well  schooled  in  the  principles  of  civil 
liberty  would  have  regarded  as  barren  phraseology,  or  mere  parade 
of  words.  They  saw  in  the  claim  of  the  British  Parliament  a  sem- 
inal principle  of  mischief,  the  germ  of  unjust  power ;  they  detected 
it,  dragged  it  forth  from  underneath  its  plausible  disguises,  struck 
at  it,  nor  did  it  elude  either  their  steady  eye,  or  their  well-directed 
blow,  till  they  had  extirpated  and  destroyed  it,  to  the  smallest 
fibre.  On  this  question  of  principle,  while  actual  suffering  was 
yet  afar  off,  they  raised  their  flag  against  a  power  to  which,  for 
purposes  of  foreign  conquest  and  subjugation,  Rome,  in  the  height 
of  her  glory,  is  not  to  be  compared  ;  a  power  which  has  dotted 
over  the  surface  of  the  whole  globe  with  her  possessions  and  mili- 


872 


SPECIMENS  OF 


tary  posts;  whose  morning  drum-beat,  following  the  sun,  and 
keeping  company  with  the  hours,  circles  the  earth  daily  with  one 
continuous  and  unbroken  strain  of  the  martial  airs  of  England  ! 


WASHINGTON'S  FAREWELL  ADDRESS.  —  E.  Everett. 

That  address  was  the  most  carefully  prepared  product  of  a 
mind  from  which  nothing  crude  or  ill-considered  ever  went  forth, 
—  the  maturest  result  of  his  life-long  experience.  At  the  close, 
as  he  believed,  of  his  political  and  military  career,  having  fought 
through  two  great  wars,  one  of  which  ended  in  establishing  the 
independence  of  his  country;  having  in  posts  of  high  responsibility 
assisted  in  bringing  about  two  organic  changes  of  government,  — . 
having  been  twice  unanimously  called  to  the  chief  magistracy,  and 
about  to  withdraw  from  office  for  the  last  time,  and,  as  he  thought, 
forever,  into  that  beloved  retirement,  as  he  termed  it,  which  he  so 
earnestly  coveted,  he  gave  to  the  people  of  the  United  States  the 
last  counsels,  as  he  calls  them,  in  language  I  can  never  repeat 
without  emotion,  "  of  an  old  and  affectionate  friend."  You  have 
read  it  a  thousand  times.  You  place  it  in  the  hands  of  your  chil- 
dren. You  appreciate  as  you  ought  those  last  words  of  wisdom 
and  love  which  gushed  from  that  noble  heart  but  a  few  years 
before  it  ceased  to  beat  forever. 

And  what  is  the  leading  advice  of  this  ever-memorable  address  ? 
Is  it  not  adherence  to  the  Union  ?  I  believe,  if  its  pages  were 
counted,  a  full  fourth  part  of  it  would  be  found  devoted  to  this 
theme.  He  tells  us  to  watch  over  its  preservation  with  the  most 
jealous  anxiety.  As  to  love  of  liberty,  which  you  might  suppose 
would  be  the  principal  topic  in  au  address  from  one  who  had 
devoted  his  life  to  promote  it,  there  is  but  a  single  sentence,  a 
couple  of  lines,  —  he  just  alludes  to  it  as  an  indwelling  sentiment 
of  the  American  heart  which  needs  no  recommendation  from  him. 
As  for  the  preservation  of  state  rights,  which  forms  so  "leading  a 
topic  in  modern  systems  of  policy,  I  believe  that  Washington  does 
not  so  much  as  allude  to  them.    I  think  he  does  not  name  them, 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


—  not  that  be  undervalued  state  rights,  but  he  knew  there  were 
centrifugal  tendencies  enough  in  so  large  a  body  of  states  for  their 
preservation.  No,  gentlemen,  it  is  union,  union,  union  — the  first, 
the  last,  the  constant  strain  of  this  immortal  address. 

What  could  my  poor  voice  add,  if  I  were  presumptuous  enough 
to  attempt  to  do  it,  to  the  parting  counsels  of  Washington  ?  If 
their  influence  ceases  to  be  felt,  it  is  not  because  Washington  is 
dead,  but  because  we  are  dead  and  cold,  buried  in  the  grave  of 
criminal  indifference  and  apathy,  absorbed  in  the  gilded  cares  of 
that  prosperity  which  we  enjoy  under  the  constitution  which  he 
did  so  much  to  procure  for  us,  —  or,  what  is  worse,  misled  by 
prejudice,  by  false  theories  of  government,  by  imaginary  sectional 
interests,  or,  still  worse,  blinded  by  party  and  maddened  by  fac- 
tion. It  is  time  for  every  man  to  utter  his  voice  in  accordance 
with  the  parting  voice  of  Washington.  I  know  it  is  said,  and  by 
many  excellent  and  patriotic,  but,  as  I  think,  greatly-mistaken 
citizens,  that  the  Union  is  not  seriously  threatened,  that  the  alarm 
is  factitious,  that  the  danger  is  wholly  imaginary,  or  greatly  over- 
rated. I  wish  I  could  think  so;  but  I  must  say  that,  in  the 
result  of  all  the  anxious  inquiry  I  have  been  able  to  make,  I  have 
come  to  the  conclusion  that  the  Union  is  in  great  danger.  I  am 
not  so  much  moved  by  the  acts  of  organized  bodies,  of  legislatures, 
of  conventions,  or  by  acts  of  riot,  disorder  and  lawlessness,  in  any 
part  of  the  country.  These  things  carry  with  them  their  own 
corrective,  to  a  certain  extent,  in  the  North  and  South.  I  know 
how  much  has  been  done  by  excellent  and  patriotic  citizens  of  the 
South  to  stay  the  disaffection  to  the  Union  in  that  quarter.  I  am 
not  so  much  led  to  the  opinion  I  have  expressed  by  public  acts 
and  demonstrations,  as  I  am  most  deeply  grieved  by  symptoms  I 
have  seen,  in  both  extremes  of  the  country,  of  a  deep  feeling  of  bit- 
terness and  ill-will,  a  spirit  of  denunciation  of  the  motives,  charac- 
ter and  policy,  of  the  opposite  sections  of  the  Union,  and  of  all  at 
home  who  are  suspected  of  having  any  charity  or  sympathy  with 
their  fellow-citizens  at  a  distance.  This,  sir,  is  what  grieves  and 
alarms  me.  Why,  if  the  several  portions  of  the  country  belonged 
to  different  nations,  —  if  they  were  alien  in  language,  in  religion 
32 


374 


SPECIMENS  OF 


and  in  race,  —  if  they  were  sworn,  like  Hannibal  at  the  altar,  to 
wage  a  war  of  destruction  against  each  other,  they  could  not  use 
stronger  or  more  bitter  language  than  I  have  read  within  a  few 
weeks,  by  men,  both  at  the  North  and  the  South,  who  entertain 
extreme  opinions  on  the  agitating  subjects  of  the  day.  I  say  it  is 
this  which  gives  me  the  greatest  alarm  for  the  continuance  of  the 
Union.  The  outward  facts  are  but  the  manifestation  of  the  spirit 
of  disaffection  and  bitterness  which,  if  not  checked,  sooner  or  later, 
or,  rather,  very  soon,  will  cause  the  Union  to  crumble. 

I  am  not  an  alarmist ;  I  never  have  been.  If  I  may  allude  to 
a  matter  so  unimportant,  I  would  say  that,  in  all  my  humble 
addresses  to  the  public,  I  have  ever  looked  on  the  bright  side  in 
reference  to  the  future  of  America.  But  if  there  is  to  be  no  relax- 
ation of  those  unkind  feelings  between  the  different  sections  of  the 
country,  —  if  men  will  not  make  up  their  minds  to  live  in  good 
leeling  and  good  faith  under  the  constitution  and  the  laws  —  that 
constitution  which  was  framed  by  our  fathers,  as  good,  as  wise,  as 
patriotic  as  ourselves,  and  under  which  the  country  has  enjoyed  a 
degree  of  prosperity  unexampled  in  the  world,  —  if  they  will  go 
on  indulging  this  fierce  spirit  of  mutual  hostility,  it  will,  at  no  dis- 
tant day,  result  in  a  separation  of  the  states,  to  be  followed  by  a 
war,  or,  rather,  a  series  of  wars,  which  will  change  the  aspect  of 
this  country,  and  injuriously  affect  the  cause  of  constitutional 
liberty  forever.  I  do  regard  it  as  demonstrable  that,  in  the  event 
of  a  separation  of  this  Union,  as  certain  as  the  sun  in  heaven 
at  mid-day,  the  sun  of  the  republic  will  go  down  from  the 
meridian  and  set  in  blood.  I  know  that  some  persons  of  sanguine 
temperament,  dallying,  as  I  think,  unwarrantably  with  these  dread- 
ful futurities,  have  persuaded  themselves  that  it  would  only  be  a 
change  of  two  confederacies  instead  of  one,  and  that  in  other  respects 
all  would  go  on  much  as  it  did  before.  Sir,  I  am  very  loth  to 
enter  into  any  speculations  of  this  kind,  on  one  side  or  the  other ; 
but,  in  my  humble  judgment,  there  will  not  be  two  confederacies, 
nor  any  confederacies,  but  as  many  despotic  governments  as,  in  the 
chances  of  conquest  and  re-conquest,  military  chieftains  may  be 
able  and  willing  to  establish.    Gentlemen,  let  Germany  teach  us. 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


375 


How  did  she  come  out  of  the  chaos  of  the  dark  ages,  after  a  thou- 
sand years  of  internecine  war  ?  Did  she  come  out  with  two  or 
three  confederacies  ?  Gentlemen,  she  counted  more  than  three  hun- 
dred independent  principalities,  as  they  called  themselves,  but  all 
lying  at  the  mercy  of  the  nearest  despot  and  the  strongest  army. 

I  presume  not  to  look  into  that  dark  abyss.  I  turn  from  it 
with  the  same  horror,  a  thousand-fold  increased,  that  I  felt  when 
in  my  youth  I  was  surprised  on  the  black  and  calcined  edge  of  the 
crater  of  Vesuvius,  when  the  sides  of  the  mountain  were  already 
quivering  with  the  convulsive  throes  of  an  approaching  eruption. 
To  attempt  to  give  form  and  outline,  to  measure  the  force,  to  calcu- 
late the  direction  of  the  molten  elements,  boiling  and  bellowing  in 
the  fiery  gulf  below,  and  just  ready  to  be  let  loose  by  the  hand  of 
God  on  this  pathway  of  destruction,  would  be  as  unavailing  and 
presumptuous  in  the  political  as  it  is  in  the  natural  world.  One 
thing,  however,  I  think,  is  certain.  We  talk  of  the  separation  of 
these  states,  assuming  that  they  would  still  remain  the  states  which 
they  now  are,  —  but  I  think  it  is  certain  as  demonstration,  that  their 
ancient  sacred  boundaries,  founded,  in  many  cases,  not  at  all  on  feat- 
ures of  physical  geography,  running,  as  they  do,  in  open  defiance  of 
the  mountains  and  rivers,  drawn  without  the  slightest  regard  to  mil- 
itary  defence,  as  if  it  were  the  design  of  Providence  that  we  should 
be  bound  together,  not  by  material  barriers,  but  by  the  cords  of 
love,  —  boundaries  resting  on  charters,  on  prescription  and  agree- 
ment, and  rendered  at  last  sacred  by  the  constitution  and  union  of 
the  United  States,  —  I  think  it  is  certain  that  some  of  those  bound- 
aries would  fall  the  first  sacrifice  to  a  separation  of  the  Union.  Do 
you  suppose,  sir,  that  thirty-one  states,  when  the  constitutional  tics 
which  now  bind  them  are  broken,  and  when  this  new  scramble  for 
separate  power  shall  begin,  are  going  to  pay  strict  regard  to  those 
unseen  and  mystical  intrenchments  within  which  stout  little  Rhode 
Island  —  which,  in  comparison  with  some  other  states,  is  rather  a 
cornfield  or  a  flower-garden  than  a  state  —  lies  as  safely  fortified 
as  your  own  imperial  New  York,  which  holds  the  Hudson  in  the 
hollow  of  her  hand,  and  extends  her  colossal  limbs  from  the  lakes 
to  the  ocean  ?    When  the  Union  is  dissolved,  do  you  think  that 


376 


SPECIMENS  OF 


holy  constitutional  spell  will  remain  unbroken  which  prevents  your 
powerful  neighbor,  Pennsylvania,  enthroned  upon  the  Alleghanies, 
with  the  broad  Susquehanna  for  her  sparkling  cincture,  and  the 
twin  tributaries  of  the  Ohio  for  the  silver  fillets  of  her  temples, 
from  raising  so  much  as  a  finger  against  gallant  little  Delaware, 
which  nestles  securely  within  the  fringes  of  the  gorgeous  robe  of 
her  queenly  sister  ? 


THE  JUDICIARY.  —  W.  E.  Channing. 

There  is  one  branch  of  government  which  we  hold  in  high  ven- 
eration, which  we  account  an  unspeakable  blessing.  We  refer  to 
the  judiciary.  From  this  tribunal,  as  from  a  sacred  oracle,  go 
forth  the  responses  of  justice. 

To  us  there  is  nothing  in  the  whole  fabric  of  civil  institutions  so 
interesting  and  imposing  as  this  impartial  and  authoritative  expo- 
sition of  the  principles  of  moral  legislation.  The  administration 
of  justice  in  this  country,  where  the  judge,  without  a  guard,  with- 
out a  soldier,  without  pomp,  decides  upon  the  dearest  interests  of 
the  citizen,  trusting  chiefly  to  the  moral  sentiment  of  the  commu- 
nity for  the  execution  of  his  decrees,  is  the  most  beautiful  and 
encouraging  aspect  under  which  our  government  can  be  viewed. 
We  repeat  it,  there  is  nothing  in  public  affairs  so  venerable  as  the 
voice  of  justice  speaking  through  her  delegated  ministers,  reaching 
and  subduing  the  high  as  well  as  the  low,  setting  a  defence  around 
the  splendid  mansion  of  wealth  and  the  lowiy  hut  of  poverty, 
repressing  wrong,  vindicating  innocence,  humbling  the  oppressor, 
and  publishing  the  rights  of  human  nature  to  every  human  being. 
'  We  confess  that  we  often  turn  with  pain  and  humiliation  from 
the  hall  of  Congress,  where  we  see  the  legislator  forgetting  the 

C5  «  o  DO 

majesty  of  his  function,  forgetting  his  relation  to  a  vast  and  grow- 
ing community,  and  sacrificing  to  his  party  or  to  himself  the  public 
weal  ;  and  it  comforts  us  to  turn  to  the  court  of  justice,  where  the 
dispenser  of  the  laws,  shutting  his  ear  against  all  solicitations  of 
friendship  or  interest,  dissolving,  for  a  time,  every  private  tie,  for- 
getting public  opinion,  and  withstanding  public  feeling,  asks  only 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


377 


what  is  right.  To  our  courts,  the  resorts  and  refuge  of  weakness 
and  innocence,  we  look  with  hope  and  joy.  "We  boast,  with  a  vir 
tuous  pride,  that  no  breath  of  corruption  has  as  yet  tainted  their 
pure  air.  To  this  department  we  cannot  ascribe  too  much  import- 
ance. Over  this  we  cannot  watch  too  jealously.  Every  encroach- 
ment on  its  independence  we  should  resent  and  repel,  as  the  chief 
wrong  our  country  can  sustain.  Woe,  woe  to  the  impious  hand 
which  would  shake  this  most  sacred  and  precious  column  of  the 
social  edifice ! 


AX  APPEAL  FOR  UNION.  —  /.  McDowell. 

Give  us  but  a  part  of  that  devotion  which  glowed  in  the  heart 
of  the  younger  Pitt,  and  of  our  own  elder  Adams,  who,  in  the 
midst  of  their  agonies,  forgot  not  the  countries  they  had  lived. for, 
but  mingled  with  the  spasms  of  their  dying  hour  a  last  and  implor- 
ing appeal  to  the  Parent  of  all  mercies,  that  he  would  remember,  in 
eternal  blessings,  the  land  of  their  birth,  —  give  us  their  devotion, 
—  give  us  that  of  the  young  enthusiast  of  Paris,  who,  listening  to 
Mirabeau  in  one  of  his  surpassing  vindications  of  human  rights, 
and  seeing  him  fall  from  his  stand,  dying,  as  a  physician  pro* 
claimed,  for  the  want  of  blood,  rushed  to  the  spot,  and,  as  he  bent 
over  the  expiring  man,  bared  his  arm  for  the  lancet,  and  cried 
again  and  again,  with  impassioned  voice,  "  Here,  take  it,  —  0,  take 
it  from  me !  let  me  die,  so  that  Mirabeau  and  the  liberties  of  my 
country  may  not  perish  !  "  Give  us  something  only  of  such  a  love 
i  of  country,  and  we  are  safe,  forever  safe;  the  troubles  which 
shadow  over  and  oppress  us  now  will  pass  away  like  a  summer 
cloud ;  the  fatal  element  of  all  our  discord  will  be  removed  from 
among  us. 

It  is  said,  sir,  that  at  some  dark  hour  of  our  Revolutionary  con- 
test, when  army  after  army  had  been  lost,  when,  dispirited,  beaten, 
wretched,  the  heart  of  the  boldest  and  faithfullest  died  within 
them,  and  all,  for  an  instant,  seemed  conquered,  except  the  uncon- 
querable soul  of  our  father-chief,  —  it  is  said  that  at  that  moment, 
rising  above  all  the  auguries  around  him,  and  buoyed  up  by 
32* 


378 


SPECIMENS  OP 


the  inspiration  of  his  immortal  work  for  all  the  trials  it  could 
bring,  he  aroused  anew  the  sunken  spirit  of  his  associates  by  this 
confident  and  daring  declaration :  "  Strip  me  (said  he)  of  the 
dejected  and  suffering  remnant  of  my  army,  take  from  me  all  that 
I  have  left,  leave  me  but  a  banner,  give  me  but  the  means  to  plant 
it  upon  the  mountains  of  West  Augusta,  and  I  will  yet  draw 
around  me  the  men  who  shall  lift  up  their  bleeding  country  from 
the  dust,  and  set  her  free  !  "  Give  to  me,  who  am  a  son  and  rep- 
resentative of  the  same  West  Augusta,  —  give  to  me  as  a  banner 
the  propitious  measure  I  have  endeavored  to  support,  help  me  to 
plant  it  upon  this  mountain-top  of  our  national  power,  and  the  land 
of  Washington,  undivided  and  unbroken,  will  be  our  land,  and  the 
land  of  our  children's  children  forever !  So  help  me  to  do  this  at 
this  hour,  and,  generations  hence,  some  future  son  of  the  South, 
standing  where  I  stand,  in  the  midst  of  our  legitimate  successors, 
will  bless,  and  praise,  and  thank  God  that  he,  too,  can  say  of  them, 
as  I  of  you,  and  of  all  around  me,  These,  these  are  my  brethren, 
and,  0,  this,  this  too,  is  my  country  ! 


ADDRESS  TO  THE  CITIZENS  OF  LEXINGTON  —  E.  H.  Kellogg. 

Borne  away  by  emotions  not  to  be  repressed,  we  can  scarcely 
do  more  than  felicitate  you  on  your  good  fortune.  Happy  men ! 
you  have  in  your  veins  the  blood,  and  in  your  keeping  the  graves, 
of  the  first  martyrs  to  the  great  cause.  Their  glorious  slumbers 
bless  this  quiet  vale.  But  that  cause  poured  its  tide  of  blessings 
over  a  wider  field  than  Concord, —  on  other  heads  than  those  of  their 
children.  In  the  full  and  abounding  fruition  of  those  blessings, 
we  appear  here,  to-day,  to  join  you  in  paying  homage  to  the  spot 
and  the  memory  of  those  whose  deaths  hallow  it.  The  same  filial 
piety  that  leads  you  to  observe  the  day  brings  us  here  to  join  you. 
Indeed,  sir,  you  can  hardly  appropriate  the  glorious  lineage  exclu- 
sively to  yourselves.  Opportunity  did  not  serve  our  ancestors  all 
alike.  But  your  fathers  did  not  raise  the  battle-shout  on  that 
morning  in  firmer  or  fiercer  tones  than  it  was  echoed  back  from 


AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


379 


the  hearts  of  our  fathers,  resident  in  other  and  more  distant  parts 
of  the  state.  All  hearts  leaped  alike  to  the  field,  though  all  hands 
did  not  close  with  the  foe  in  the  fight.  Sir,  these  fields  of  Con- 
cord and  Lexington  expand,  as  I  am  contemplating  them,  to  the 
full  dimensions  of  Massachusetts.  The  hearts  of  all  her  sons, 
seventy-five  years  ago,  beat  responsive  to  those  in  Concord.  And 
so,  I  must  be  allowed  to  believe,  does  the  chord  that  you  strike 
here  to-day  vibrate  throughout  the  same  wide  limits.  Whether 
we  live  on  that  cape  that  stretches  her  mighty  arm  so  far  into  the 
sea,  or  within  the  charmed  circle  of  Faneuil  Hall's  influence,  or 
whether  we  live  in  the  great  central  county,  or  in  the  velvet  vale 
of  the  queen  of  New  England  waters,  or  breathe  the  air  of  my  own 
dear  mountain  land,  —  however  distant  our  abodes,  we  would  this 
day  bow  with  you  around  this  early  altar  of  our  country's  freedom, 
with  equal  gratitude  to  those  who  consecrated  it,  and  to  God  who 
so  abundantly  blessed  their  cause. 

The  great  volume  of  history  does  not  present  an  instance  of 
more  noble  services  in  behalf  of  other  states  than  that  of  Massa- 
chusetts affords.  The  fight  we  celebrate  was  not  begun  for  Con- 
cord, but  the  country.  It  was  but  a  few  short  months  after  the 
event  before  the  last  foot  of  the  invaders  left  our  state  forever, 
But  did  Massachusetts  halt  on  her  borders,  when  she  found  her 
own  soil  free  ?  No !  For  seven  long  years,  wherever  the  front 
of  battle  lowered  darkest,  there  was  she  found  in  numbers  and  in 
spirit  in  the  foremost  ranks  of  the  Revolutionary  army.  Around 
the  Green  Mountain  lakes,  on  the  banks  of  the  Hudson,  the  Dela- 
ware or  the  Susquehanna,  on  the  plains  of  Virginia  or  the  savannas 
of  the  South,  —  on  whatever  part  of  our  country  the  power  of 
England  descended,  there  she  bared  her  breast  to  the  shock. 
When  the  country  found  itself  incapable  of  exertion,  almost  incapa- 
ble of  defence,  under  the  old  confederation  of  independent  states, 
she  waived  her  state  pride,  and  contributed  the  wisdom  of  her 
Kings,  her  Gerrys,  her  Gorhams,  and  Strongs,  to  the  establish- 
ment of  the  present  political  fabric  —  the  wonder  of  the  world. 
Under  that  Union  she  has  exhibited  the  same  patriotism  with 
which  she  led  the  states  through  the  weary  way  of  the  Revolution 


380 


SPECIMENS  OF  AMERICAN  ELOQUENCE. 


THE  SHIP  OF  STATE.  —  W.  P.  Lunt. 

Break  up  the  Union  of  these  States,  because  there  are  acknfl 
edged  evils  in  our  system  !  Suppose  the  fatal  blow  were  struct; 
would  the  evils  and  mischiefs  that  would  be  experienced  I 
those  who  are  actually  members  of  this  vast  republican  commuriil 
be  all  that  would  ensue?  Certainly  not.  We  are  connectc 
with  the  several  nations  and.  races  of  the  world  as  no  other  peop' 
has  ever  been  connected.  We  have  opened  our  doors,  and  invite 
emigration  to  our  soil  from  all  lands.  Our  invitation  has  bee 
accepted.  We  are  in  this  way  teaching  the  world  a  great  lessoi 
It  may  safely  be  asserted  that  this  Union  could  not  be  dissolve 
without  disarranging  and  convulsing  ever.y  part  of  the  globe.  Nc 
in  the  indulgence  of  a  vain  confidence  did  our  fathers  build  th 
ship  of  state,  and  launch  it  upon  the  waters.  We  will  exclaim,  i 
the  noble  words  of  one  of  our  poets  : 

"  Thou,  too,  sail  on,  0  ship  of  state  ! 
Sail  on,  0  Union,  strong  and  great ! 
Humanity  with  all  its  fears, 
With  all  the  hopes  of  future  years, 
Is  hanging  breathless  on  thy  fate  ! 
We  know  what  master  laid  thy  keel, 
What  workmen  wrought  thy  ribs  of  steel, 
Who  made  each  mast,  and  sail,  and  rope, 
What  anvils  rang,  what  hammers  beat, 
In  what  a  forge  and  what  a  heat 
Were  shaped  the  anchors  of  thy  hope  ! 
Fear  not  each  sudden  sound  and  shock,  — 
'T  is  of  the  wave  and  not  the  rock  ; 
'T  is  but  the  flapping  of  the  sail, 
And  not  a  rent  made  by  the  gale  ! 
In  spite  of  rock  and  tempest  roar, 
In  spite  of  false  lights  on  the  shore, 
Sail  on,  nor  fear  to  breast  the  sea  ! 
Our  hearts,  our  hopes,  are  all  with  thee. 
Our  hearts,  our  hopes,  our  prayers,  our  tears, 
Our  faith  triumphant  o'er  our  fears, 
Are  all  with  thee,  —  are  all  with  thee  !  " 


APPENDIX. 


DECLARATION  OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

AYhek,  in  the  course  of  human  events,  it  becomes  necessary  for  one  poopla 
to  dissolve  the  political  bands  which  have  connected  them  with  another,  and 
to  assume  among  the  powers  of  the  earth  the  separate  and  equal  station  to 
which  the  laws  of  nature  and  of  nature's  God  entitle  them,  a  decent  respect 
to  the  opinions  of  mankind  requires  that  they  should  declare  the  causes  which 
impel  them  to  the  separation. 

'  We  hold  these  truths  to  be  self-evident,  that  all  men  are  created  equal ;  that 
they  are  endowed  by  their  Creator  with  certain  unalienable  rights;  that  among 
ithese  are  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness.  That,  to  secure  these 
rights,  governments  are  instituted  among  men,  deriving  their  just  powers  from 
the  consent  of  the  governed;  that,  whenever  any  form  of  government  becomes 
destructive  of  these  ends,  it  is  the  right  of  the  people  to  alter  or  to  abolish  it, 
ind  to  institute  a  new  government,  laying  its  foundation  on  such  principles, 
ind  organizing  its  powers  in  such  form,  as  to  them  shall  seem  most  likely  to 
effect  their  safety  and  happiness.  Prudence,  indeed,  will  dictate  that  govern- 
ments long  established  should  not  be  changed  for  light  and  transient  causes; 
ind,  accordingly,  all  experience  hath  shown  that  mankind  are  more  disposed 
,o  suffer,  while  evils  are  sufferablc,  than  to  right  themselves  by  abolishing  the 
brms  to  which  they  are  accustomed.  But,  when  a  long  train  of  abuses  and 
isurpations,  pursuing  invariably  the  same  object,  evinces  a  design  to  reduce 
-hem  under  absolute  despotism,  it  is  their  right,  it  is  their  duty,  to  throw  off 
such  government,  and  to  provide  new  guards  for  their  future  security.  Such 
las  been  the  patient  sufferance  of  these  colonies,  and  such  is  now  the  necessity 
vhich  constrains  them  to  alter  their  former  systems  of  government.  The  his- 
ory  of  the  present  King  of  Great  Britain  is  a  history  of  repeated  injuries  and 
isurpations,  all  having  in  direct  object  the  establishment  of  an  absolute  tyranny 
•ver  these  states.    To  prove  this,  let  facts  be  submitted  to  a  candid  world  : 

He  has  refused  his  assent  to  laws  the  most  wholesome  and  necessary  for  the 
mblic  good. 

He  has  forbidden  his  governors  to  pass  laws  of  immediate  and  pressing  iin- 
•ortance,  unless  suspended  in  their  operation  till  his  assent  should  be  obtained; 
nd,  when  so  suspended,  he  has  utterly  neglected  to  attend  to  them. 

He  has  refused  to  pass  other  laws  for  the  accommodation  of  large  districts  of 
•eople,  unless  those  people  would  relinquish  the  right  of  representation  in  tha 
agislature;  a  right  inestimable  to  them,  and  formidable  to  tyrants  only. 

He  has  called  together  legislative  bodies  at  places  unusual,  uncomfortable, 
nd  distant  from  the  depository  of  their  public  records,  for  the  sole  purpose  of 
itiguing  them  into  compliance  with  his  measures. 


382 


APPENDIX. 


He  has  dissolved  representative  houses  repeatedly,  for  opposing,  with  manly 
firmness,  his  invasions  on  the  rights  of  the  people. 

lie  has  refused,  for  a  long  time  after  such  dissolutions,  to  cause  others  to 
be  elected;  whereby  the  legislative  powers,  incapable  of  annihilation,  have 
returned  to  the  people  at  large  for  their  exercise;  the  state  remaining,  in  the 
mean  time,  exposed  to  all  the  danger  of  invasion  from  without  and  convulsions 
within. 

He  has  endeavored  to  prevent  the  population  of  these  states;  for  that  pur- 
pose, obstructing  the  laws  for  naturalization  of  foreigners;  refusing  to  pass 
others  to  encourage  their  migration  hither,  and  raising  the  conditions  of  new 
appropriations  of  lands. 

He  has  obstructed  tho  administration  of  justice,  by  refusing  his  assent  to 
laws  for  establishing  judiciary  powers. 

He  has  made  judges  dependent  on  his  will  alone,  for  the  tenure  of  their 
offices  and  the  amount  and  payment  of  their  salaries. 

.  He  has  erected  a  multitude  of  new  offices,  and  sent  hither  swarms  of  officers 
to  harass  our  people  and  eat  out  their  substance. 

He  has  kept  among  us,  in  times  of  peace,  standing  armies,  without  the  con- 
sent of  our  legislature. 

He  has  affected  to  render  the  military  independent  of  and  superior  to  the 
civil  power. 

He  has  combined  with  others  to  subject  us  to  a  jurisdiction  foreign  to  our 
constitution,  and  unacknowledged  by  our  laws;  giving  his  assent  to  their  acts 
of  pretended  legislation  : 

For  quartering  large  bodies  of  armed  troops  among  us  : 

For  protecting  them,  by  a  mock  trial,  from  punishment,  for  any  murders 
which  they  should  commit  on  the  inhabitants  of  these  states  : 

For  cutting  off  our  trade  with  all  parts  of  the  world  : 

For  imposing  taxes  on  us  without  our  consent  : 

For  depriving  us,  in  many  cases,  of  the  benefits  of  trial  by  jury: 

For  transporting  us  beyond  seas  to  be  tried  for  pretended  offences  : 

For  abolishing  the  free  system  of  English  laws  in  a  neighboring  province, 
establishing  therein  an  arbitrary  government,  and  enlarging  its  boundaries,  so 
as  to  render  it  at  once  an  example  and  fit  instrument  for  introducing  the  same 
absolute  rule  into  these  colonies  : 

For  taking  away  our  charters,  abolishing  our  most  valuable  laws,  and  alter- 
ing fundamentally  the  powers  of  our  governments  : 

For  suspending  our  own  legislatures,  and  declaring  themselves  invested  with 
power  to  legislate  for  us  in  all  cases  whatsoever. 

He  has  abdicated  government  here,  by  declaring  us  out  of  his  protection,  and 
waging  war  against  us. 

He  has  plundered  our  seas,  ravaged  our  coasts,  burnt  our  towns,  and^lestroycd 
the  lives  of  our  people. 

He  is,  at  this  time,  transporting  large  armies  of  foreign  mercenaries  to  com- 
plete the  works  of  death,  desolation  and  tyranny,  already  begun,  with  circum- 
stances of  cruelty  and  perfidy  scarcely  paralleled  in  the  most  barbarous  ages, 
and  totally  unworthy  the  head  of  a  civilized  nation. 

He  has  constrained  our  fellow-citizens,  taken  captive  on  the  high  seas,  to 
bear  arms  against  their  country,  to  become  the  executioners  of  their  frienda 
and  brethren,  or  to  fall  themselves  by  their  hands. 

He  has  excited  domestic  insurrections  amongst  ufj  and  has  endeavored  to 
bring  on  the  inhabitants  of  our  frontiers  the  merciless  Indian  savages,  whoee 
known  rule  of  warfare  is  an  undistinguished  destruction  of  all  ages,  sexes,  and 
conditions. 

In  every  stage  of  these  oppressions  we  have  petitioned  for  redress  in  tho 
most  humble  terms.  Our  repeated  petitions  have  been  answered  only  by 
repeated  injury.  A  prince  whose  character  is  thus  marked  by  every  act  which 
may  define  a  tyrant  is  unfit  to  be  the  ruler  of  a  free  people. 


APPENDIX. 


Nor  have  we  been  wanting  in  attention  to  our  British  brethren.  "We  have 
warned  them,  from  time  to  time,  of  attempts  made  by  their  legislature  to 
extend  an  unwarrantable  jurisdiction  over  us.  We  have  reminded  them  of  the 
circumstances  of  our  emigration  and  settlement  here.  We  have  appealed  to 
their  native  justice  and  magnanimity,  and  we  have  conjured  them,  by  the  ties 
of  our  common  kindred,  to  disavow  these  usurpations,  which  would  inevitably 
interrupt  our  connections  and  correspondence.  They,  too,  have  been  deaf  to 
the  voice  of  justice  and  consanguinity.  We  must,  therefore,  acquiesce  in  the 
necessity  which  denounces  our  separation,  and  hold  them,  as  we  hold  the  rest 
of  mankind,  enemies  in  war,  in  peace  friends. 

We,  therefore,  the  representatives  of  the  UNITED  STATES  OF  AMERICA, 
in  GENERAL  CONGRESS  assembled,  appealing  to  the  Supreme  Judge  of  the 
world  for  the  rectitude  of  our  intentions,  do,  in  the  name  and  by  the  authority 
of  the  good  people  of  these  colonies,  solemnly  publish  and  declare,  That  these 
United  Colonies  are,  and  of  right  ought  to  be,  FREE  AND  INDEPENDENT 
STATES  ;  that  they  are  absolved  from  all  allegiance  to  the  British  crown,  and 
that  all  political  connection  between  them  and  the  state  of  Great  Britain  is  and 
ought  to  be  totally  dissolved;  and  that,  as  FREE  AND  INDEPENDENT 
STATES,  they  have  full  power  to  levy  war,  conclude  peace,  contract  alliances, 
establish  commerce,  and  to  do  all  other  acts  and  things  which  INDEPENDENT 
STATES  may  of  right  do.  And,  for  the  support  of  this  declaration,  with  a 
firm  reliance  on  the  protection  of  DIVINE  PROVIDENCE,  we  mutually  pledge 
to  each  other  our  lives,  our  fortunes,  and  our  sacred  honor. 


MASSACHUSETTS. 


!  384  APPENDIX. 

NEW  HAMPSHIRE. 


APPENDIX. 


APPENDIX.  3g7 

VIRGINIA. 


NEW  JERSEY. 


PENNSYLVANIA. 


390  APPENDIX. 

SOUTH  CAROLINA. 


y  ft 


GEORGIA. 


CONSTITUTION  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES. 


We  the  people  of  the  United  States,  in  order  to  form  a  more  perfect  union, 
establish  justice,  insure  domestic  tranquillity,  provide  for  the  common 
defence,  promote  the  general  -welfare,  and  secure  the  blessings  of  liberty  to 
ourselves  and  our  posterity,  do  ordain  and  establish  this  Constitution  for 
the  United  States  of  America. 

ARTICLE  I. 

Sec.  1.  All  legislative  powers  herein  granted  shall  be  vested  in  a  Congress 
of  the  United  States,  which  shall  consist  of  a  Senate  and  House  of  Representa- 
tives. 

Sec.  2.  The  House  of  Representatives  shall  be  composed  of  members  chosen 
every  second  year  by  the  people  of  the  several  states,  and  the  electors  in  each 
state  shall  have  the  qualifications  requisite  for  electors  of  the  most  numerous 
branch  of  the  State  Legislature.  No  person  shall  be  a  representative  who 
shall  not  have  attained  to  the  age  of  twenty-five  years,  and  been  seven  years  a 
citizen  of  the  United  States,  and  who  shall  not,  when  elected,  be  an  inhabitant 
of  that  state  in  which  he  shall  be  chosen.  Representatives  and  direct  taxes 
shall  be  apportioned  among  the  several  states  which  may  be  included  within 
this  Union,  according  to  their  respective  numbers,  which  shall  be  determined 
by  adding  to  the  whole  number  of  free  persons,  including  those  bound  to  ser- 
vice for  a  term  of  years,  and  excluding  Indians  not  taxed,  three-fifths  of  all 
other  persons.  The  actual  enumeration  shall  be  made  within  three  years  after 
the  first  meeting  of  the  Congress  of  the  United  States,  and  within  every  subse- 
quent term  of  ten  years,  in  such  manner  as  they  shall  by  law  direct.  The 
number  of  representatives  shall  not  exceed  one  for  every  thirty  thousand,  but 
each  state  shall  have  at  least  one  representative  ;  and,  until  such  enumera- 
tion shall  be  made,  the  State  of  New  Hampshire  shall  be  entitled  to  choose 
three,  Massachusetts  eight,  Rhode  Island  and  Providence  Plantations  one,  Con- 
necticut five,  New  York  six,  New  Jersey  four,  Pennsylvania  eight,  Delaware 
one,  Maryland  six,  Virginia  ten,  North  Carolina  five,  South  Carolina  five,  and 
Georgia  three.  When  vacancies  happen  in  the  representation  from  any  state, 
the  executive  authority  thereof  shall  issue  writs  of  election  to  fill  such  vacan- 
cies. The  House  of  Representatives  shall  choose  their  speaker  and  other 
officers  ;  and  shall  have  the  sole  power  of  impeachment. 

Sec.  3 .  The  Senate  of  the  United  States  shall  be  composed  of  two  senators 
from  each  state,  chosen  by  the  legislature  thereof,  for  six  years  ;  and  each 
senator  shall  have  one  vote.  Immediately  after  they  shall  be  assembled  in 
consequence  of  the  first  election,  they  shall  be  divided  as  equally  as  may  be 
into  three  classes.  The  seats  of  the  senators  of  the  first  class  shall  be  vacated 
at  the  expiration  of  the  second  year,  of  the  second  class  at  the  expiration  of  the 
fourth  year,  and  of  the  third  class  at  the  expiration  of  the  sixth  year,  so  that 
one-third  may  be  chosen  every  second  year  ;  and  if  vacancies  happen  by  resig- 
nation, or  otherwise,  during  the  recess  of  the  legislature  of  any  state,  the  exec- 
utive thereof  may  make  temporary  appointments  until  the  next  meeting  of  the 
legislature,  which  shall  then  fill  such  vacancies.  No  person  shall  be  a  senator 
who  shall  not  have  attained  the  age  of  thirty  years,  and  been  nine  years  a 
citizen  of  the  United  States,  and  who  shall  not,  when  elected,  be  an  inhabitant 
of  that  state  for  which  he  3hall  be  chosen.    The  Vice-president  of  the  United 


392 


APPENDIX. 


States  shall  be  President  of  the  Senate,  but  shall  have  no  vote,  unless  they  be 
equally  divided.  The  Senate  shall  choose  their  other  officers,  and  also  a  presi- 
dent pro  tempore,  in  the  absence  of  the  vice-president,  or  when  he  shall  exercise 
the  office  of  President  of  the  United  States.  The  Senate  shall  have  the  sole 
power  to  try  all  impeachments.  When  sitting  for  that  purpose,  they  shall  be 
on  oath  or  affirmation.  When  the  President  of  the  United  States  is  tried, 
the  chief-justice  shall  preside  :  And  no  person  shall  be  convicted  without  the 
concurrence  of  two-thirds  of  the  members  present.  Judgment  in  cases  of 
impeachment  shall  not  extend  further  than  to  removal  from  office,  and  disqual- 
ification to  hold  and  enjoy  any  office  of  honor,  trust  or  profit,  under  the  United 
States  ;  but  the  party  convicted  shall  nevertheless  bo  liable  and  subject  to 
indictment,  trial,  judgment  and  punishment,  according  to  law. 

Sec.  4.  The  times,  places  and  manner  of  holding  elections  for  senators  and 
representatives,  shall  be  prescribed  in  each  state  by  the  legislature  thereof ; 
but  the  Congress  may  at  any  time  by  law  make  or  alter  such  regulations, 
except  as  to  the  places  of  choosing  senators.  The  Congress  shall  assemble  at 
least  once  in  every  year,  and  such  meeting  shall  be  on  the  first  Monday  in 
December,  unless  they  shall  by  law  appoint  a  different  day. 

Sec.  5.  Each  house  shall  be  the  judge  of  the  elections,  returns  and  qualifica- 
tions of  its  own  members,  and  a  majority  of  each  shall  constitute  a  quorum  to 
do  business  ;  but  a  smaller  number  may  adjourn  from  day  to  day,  and  may  be 
authorized  to  compel  the  attendance  of  absent  members,  in  such  manner  and 
under  such  penalties  as  each  house  may  provide.  Each  house  may  determine 
the  rules  of  its  proceedings,  punish  its  members  for  disorderly  behavior,  and, 
with  the  concurrence  of  two-thirds,  expel  a  member.  Each  house  shall  keep  a 
journal  of  its  proceedings,  and  from  time  to  time  publish  the  same,  excepting 
such  parts  as  may  in  their  judgment  require  secrecy  ;  and  the  yeas  and  nays  of 
the  members  of  either  house  on  any  question  shall,  at  the  desire  of  one-fifth  of 
those  present,  be  entered  on  the  journal.  Neither  house,  during  the  session 
of  Congress,  shall,  without  the  consent  of  the  other,  adjourn  for  more  than  three 
days,  nor  to  any  other  place  than  that  in  which  the  two  houses  shall  be  sitting. 

Sec.  G.  The  senators  and  representatives  shall  receive  a  compensation  for 
their  services,  to  be  ascertained  by  law,  and  paid  out  of  the  treasury  of  the 
United  States.  They  shall  in  all  cases,  except  treason,  felony,  and  breach  of 
the  peace,  be  privileged  from  arrest  during  their  attendance  at  the  session  of 
their  respective  houses,  and  in  going  to  and  returning  from  the  same  ;  and  for 
any  speech  or  debate  in  either  house  they  shall  not  be  questioned  in  any  other 
place.  No  senator  or  representative  shall,  during  the  time  for  which  he  was 
elected,  be  appointed  to  any  civil  office  under  the  authority  of  the  United  States, 
which  shall  have  been  created,  or  the  emoluments  whereof  shall  have  been 
increased,  during  such  time;  and  no  person  holding  any  office  under  the  United 
States  shall  be  a  member  of  either  house  during  his  continuance  in  office. 

Sec.  7.  All  bills  for  raising  revenue  shall  originate  in  the  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives ;  but  the  Senate  may  propose  or  concur  with  amendments,  as  on 
other  bills.  Every  bill  which  shall  have  passed  the  House  of  Representatives 
and  the  Senate  shall,  before  it  become  a  law,  be  presented  to  the  President  of 
the  United  States.  If  he  approve,  he  shall  sign  it;  but,  if  not,  he  shall  return 
it,  with  his  objections,  to  that  house  in  which  it  shall  have  originated,  who  shall 
enter  the  objections  at  large  on  their  journal,  and  proceed  to  reconsider  it.  If, 
after  such  reconsideration,  two-thirds  of  that  house  shall  agree  to  pass  the  bill, 
it  shall  be  sent,  together  with  the  objections,  to  the  other  house,  by  which  it 
shall  likewise  be  reconsidered,  and  if  approved  by  two-thirds  of  that  house,  it 
shall  become  a  law.  But  in  all  such  cases  the  votes  of  both  houses  shall  be 
determined  by  yeas  and  nays,  and  the  names  of  the  persons  voting  for  and 
against  the  bill  shall  be  entered  on  the  journal  of  each  house  respectively.  If 
any  bill  shall  not  be  returned  by  the  president  within  ten  days  (Sundays 
excepted)  after  it  shall  have  been  presented  to  him,  the  same  shall  be  a  law, 
in  like  manner  as  if  he  had  signed  it,  unless  the  Congress  by  their  adjournment 


APPENDIX. 


393 


prevent  its  return,  in  which  case  it  shall  not  be  a  law.  Every  orier,  resolution 
or  vote,  to  which  the  concurrence  of  the  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives 
may  be  necessary  (except  on  a  question  of  adjournment),  shall  be  presented  to 
the  President  of  the  United  States  ;  and  before  the  same  shall  take  elFect,  shall 
be  approved  by  him,  or,  being  disapproved  by  him,  shall  be  repassed  by  two- 
thirds  of  the  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives,  according  to  the  rules  and 
limitations  prescribed  in  the  case  of  a  bill. 

Sec.  8.  The  Congress  shall  have  power  :  To  lay  and  collect  taxes,  duties, 
imposts  and  excises,  to  pay  the  debts  and  provide  for  the  common  defence  and 
general  welfare  of  the  United  States,  but  all  duties,  imposts  and  excises,  shall 
be  uniform  throughout  the  United  States  ;  to  borrow  money  on  the  credit  of 
the  United  States  ;  to  regulate  commerce  with  foreign  nations,  and  among  the 
states,  and  with  the  Indian  tribes;  to  establish  an  uniform  rule  of  naturalization, 
and  uniform  laws  on  the  subject  of  bankruptcies,  throughout  the  United  States  ; 
to  coin  money,  regulate  the  value  thereof,  and  of  foreign  coin,  and  fix  the  stand- 
ard of  weights  and  measures  ;  to  provide  for  the  punishment  of  counterfeiting 
the  securities  and  current  coin  of  the  United  States;  to  establish  post  offices  and 
post  roads  ;  to  promote  the  progress  of  science  and  useful  arts,  by  securing  for 
limited  times  to  authors  and  inventors  the  exclusive  right  to  their  respective 
writings  and  discoveries  ;  to  constitute  tribunals  inferior  to  the  Supreme  Court  ; 
to  define  and  punish  piracies  and  felonies  committed  on  the  high  seas,  and 
offences  against  the  law  of  nations  ;  to  declare  war,  grant  letters  of  marque  and 
reprisal,  and  make  rules  concerning  captures  on  land  and  Avater  ;  to  raise  and 
support  armies,  but  no  appropriation  of  money  to  that  use  shall  be  for  a  longer 
term  than  two  years  ;  to  provide  and  maintain  a  navy  ;  to  make  rules  for  the 
government  and  regulation  of  the  land  and  naval  forces  ;  to  provide  for  calling 
forth  the  militia  to  execute  the  laws  of  the  Union,  suppress  insurrections,  and 
repel  invasions  ;  to  provide  for  organizing,  arming  and  disciplining  the  militia, 
and  for  governing  such  part  of  them  as  may  be  employed  in  the  service  of  the 
United  States,  reserving  to  the  states  respectively  the  appointment  of  the  officers 
and  the  authority  of  training  the  militia  according  to  the  discipline  prescribed 
by  Congress  ;  to  exercise  exclusive  legislation,  in  all  cases  whatsoever,  over 
such  district  (not  exceeding  ten  miles  square)  as  may,  by  cession  of  particular 
states,  and  the  acceptance  of  Congress,  become  the  seat  of  the  government  of 
the  United  States,  and  to  exercise  like  authority  over  all  places  purchased  by 
the  consent  of  the  legislature  of  the  state  in  which  the  same  shall  be,  for  the 
erection  of  forts,  magazines,  arsenals,  dock-yardfi,  and  other  needful  buildings  ; 
and  to  make  all  laws  which  shall  be  necessary  and  proper  for  carrying  into 
execution  the  foregoing  powers,  and  all  other  powers  vested  by  this  constitu- 
tion in  the  government  of  the  United  States,  or  in  any  department  or  officer 
thereof. 

Sec.  9.  The  migration  or  importation  of  such  persons  as  any  of  the  states  now 
existing  shall  think  proper  to  admit  shall  not  be  prohibited  by  the  Congress 
prior  to  the  year  one  thousand  eight  hundred  and  eight,  but  a  tax  or  duty  may 
be  imposed  on  such  importation,  not  exceeding  ten  dollars  for  each  person. 
The  privilege  of  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus  shall  not  be  suspended,  unless  when 
in  cases  of  rebellion  or  invasion  the  public  safety  may  require  it.  No  bill  of 
attainder  or  ex  post  facto  law  shall  be  passed.  No  capitation  or  other  direct 
tax  shall  be  laid,  unless  in  proportion  to  the  census  or  enumeration  herein- 
before directed  to  be  taken.  No  tax  or  duty  shall  be  laid  on  articles  exported 
from  any  state.  No  preference  shall  be  given  by  any  regulation  of  commerce 
or  revenue  to  the  ports  of  one  state  over  those  of  another  ;  nor  shall  vessels 
bound  to  or  from  one  state  be  obliged  to  enter,  clear  or  pay  duties,  in  another. 
No  money  shall  be  drawn  from  the  treasury  but  in  consequence  of  appropria- 
tions made  by  law  ;  and  a  regular  statement  and  account  of  the  receipts  and 
expenditures  of  all  public  money  shall  be  published  from  time  to  time.  No 
title  of  nobility  shall  be  granted  by  the  United  States  ;  and  no  person  holding 
any  office  of  profit  or  trust  under  them  shall,  without  tho  consent  of  the  Con- 


394 


APPENDIX. 


gress,  accept  of  any  present,  emolument,  office  or  title,  of  any  kind  whatever, 
from  any  king,  prince,  or  foreign  state. 

Sec.  10.  No  state  shall  enter  into  any  treaty,  alliance  or  confederation  ; 
grant  letters  of  marque  and  reprisal  ;  coin  money  ;  emit  bills  of  credit  ;  make 
anything  but  gold  and  silver  coin  a  tender  in  payment  of  debts  ;  pass  any  bill  of 
attainder,  ex  post  facto  law,  or  law  impairing  the  obligation  of  contracts,  or 
grant  any  title  of  nobility.  No  state  shall,  without  the  consent  of  the  Con- 
gress, lay  any  imposts  or  duties  on  imports  or  exports,  except  what  may  be 
absolutely  necessary  for  executing  its  inspection  laws  ;  and  the  net  produce  of 
all  duties  and  imposts  laid  by  any  state  on  imports  or  exports  shall  be  for  the 
use  of  the  treasury  of  the  Inited  States  ;  and  all  such  laws  shall  be  subject  to 
the  revision  and  control  of  the  Congress.  No  state  shall,  without  the  consent 
of  Congress,  lay  any  duty  of  tonnage,  keep  troops  or  ships  of  war  in  time  of 
peace,  enter  into  any  agreement  or  compact  with  another  state,  or  with  a  foreign 
power,  or  engage  in  war,  unless  actually  invaded,  or  in  such  imminent  danger 
as  will  not  admit  of  delay. 

ARTICLE  II. 

Sec.  1.  The  executive  power  shall  be  vested  in  a  President  of  the  United 
States  of  America.  He  shall  hold  his  office  during  the  term  of  four  years,  and, 
together  with  the  vice-president,  chosen  for  the  same  term,  be  elected  as  fol- 
lows :  Each  state  shall  appoint,  in  such  manner  as  the  legislature  thereof  may 
direct,  a  number  of  electors  equal  to  the  whole  number  of  senators  and  repre- 
sentatives to  which  the  state  may  be  entitled  in  the  Congress  ;  but  no  senator 
or  representative,  or  person  holding  an  office  of  trust  or  profit  under  the 
United  States,  shall  be  appointed  an  elector.  [*  The  electors  shall  meet  in 
their  respective  states,  and  vote  by  ballot  for  two  persons,  of  whom  one  at 
least  shall  not  be  an  inhabitant  of  the  same  state  with  themselves.  And  they 
shall  make  a  list  of  all  the  persons  voted  for,  and  of  the  number  of  votes  for 
each  ;  which  list  they  shall  sign  and  certify,  and  transmit  sealed  to  the  seat  of 
the  government  of  the  United  States,  directed  to  the  President  of  the  Senate. 
The  President  of  the  Senate  shall,  in  the  presence  of  the  Senate  and  House  of 
Representatives,  open  all  the  certificates,  and  the  votes  shall  then  be  counted. 
The  person  having  the  greatest  number  of  votes  shall  be  the  president,  if  such 
number  be  a  majority  of  the  whole  number  of  electors  appointed  ;  and  if  there 
be  more  than  one  who  have  such  majority,  and  have  an  equal  number  of 
votes,  then  the  House  of  Representatives  shall  immediately  choose  by  ballot 
one  of  them  for  president  ;  and  if  no  person  have  a  majority,  then  from  the 
five  highest  on  the  list  the  said  house  shall  in  like  manner  choose  the  president. 
But,  in  choosing  the  president,  the  votes  shall  be  taken  by  states,  the  represent- 
ation from  each  state  having  one  vote  ;  a  quorum  for  this  purpose  shall  con- 
sist of  a  member  or  members  from  two-thirds  of  the  states,  and  a  majority  of 
all  the  states  shall  be  necessary  to  a  choice.  In  every  case,  after  the  choice 
of  the  president,  the  person  having  the  greatest  number  of  votes  of  the  electors 
shall  be  the  vice-president.  But,  if  there  should  remain  two  or  more  who  have 
equal  votes,  the  Senate  shall  choose  from  them  by  ballot  the  vice-president.] 
The  Congress  ma}'  determine  the  time  of  choosing  the  electors,  and  the  day  on 
which  they  shall  give  their  votes  ;  which  day  shall  be  the  same  throughout 
the  United  States.  No  person  except  a  natural-born  citizen,  or  a  citizen  of  the 
United  States  at  the  time  of  the  adoption  of  this  constitution,  shall  be  eligible 
to  the  office  of  president  ;  neither  shall  any  person  be  eligible  to  that  office 
who  shall  not  have  attained  to  the  age  of  thirty-five  years,  and  been  fourteen 
years  a  resident  within  the  United  State?.  In  case  of  the  removal  of  the  pres- 
ident from  office,  or  of  his  death,  resignation,  or  inability  to  discharge  tho 
powers  and  duties  of  the  said  office,  the  same  shall  devolve  on  the  vice-presi- 

*  This  clause  within  brackets  has  been  superseded  and  annulled  by  the  12th  amendment. 


APPENDIX. 


395 


dent,  and  the  Congress  may  by  law  provide  for  the  case  of  removal,  death, 
resignation  or  inability,  both  of  the  president  and  vice-president,  declaring  what 
officer  shall  then  act  as  president,  and  such  officer  shall  act  accordingly,  until 
the  disability  be  removed,  or  a  president  shall  be  elected.  The  president  shall, 
at  stated  times,  receive  for  his  services  a  compensation,  which  shall  neither  be 
increased  nor  diminished  during  the  period  for  which  he  shall  have  been  elected, 
and  he  shall  not  receive  within  that  period  any  other  emolument  from  the 
United  States  or  any  of  them.  Before  he  enter  on  the  execution  of  his  office, 
he  shall  take  the  following  oath  or  affirmation  :  "I  do  solemnly  swear  (or 
affirm)  that  I  will  faithfully  execute  the  office  of  President  of  the  United 
States,  and  will  to  the  best  of  my  ability  preserve,  protect  and  defend,  the  con- 
stitution of  the  United  States." 

Sec.  2.  The  president  shall  be  commander-in-chief  of  the  army  and  navy  of 
the  United  States,  and  of  the  militia  of  the  several  states  when  called  into  the 
actual  service  of  the  United  States  ;  he  may  require  the  opinion,  in  writing,  of 
the  principal  officer  in  each  of  the  executive  departments,  upon  any  subject 
relating  to  the  duties  of  their  respective  offices  ;  and  he  shall  have  power  to 
grant  reprieves  and  pardons  for  offences  against  the  United  States,  except  in 
cases  of  impeachment.  He  shall  have  power,  by  and  with  the  advice  and  con- 
sent of  the  Senate,  to  make  treaties,  provided  two-thirds  of  the  senators  present 
concur  ;  and  he  shall  nominate,  and  by  and  with  the  advice  and  consent  of  the 
Senate  shall  appoint  ambassadors,  other  public  ministers  and  consuls,  judges  of 
the  Supreme  Court,  and  all  other  officers  of  the  United  States  whose  appoint- 
ments are  not  herein  otherwise  provided  for,  and  which  shall  be  established  by 
law  :  but  the  Congress  may  by  law  vest  the  appointment  of  such  inferior  officers 
as  they  think  proper  in  the  president  alone,  in  the  courts  of  law,  or  in  the 
heads  of  departments.  The  president  shall  have  power  to  fill  up  all  vacancies 
that  may  happen  during  the  recess  of  the*  Senate,  by  granting  commissions 
which  shall  expire  at  the  end  of  their  next  session. 

Sec.  3.  He  shall  from  time  to  time  give  to  the  Congress  information  of  the 
state  of  the  Union,  and  recommend  to  their  consideration  such  measures  as  he 
shall  judge  necessary  and  expedient  ;  he  may,  on  extraordinary  occasions, 
convene  both  houses,  or  either  of  them,  and  in  case  of  disagreement  between 
them  with  respect  to  the  time  of  adjournment,  he  may  adjourn  them  to  such 
time  as  he  shall  think  proper  ;  he  shall  receive  ambassadors  and  other  public 
ministers  ;  he  shall  take  care  that  the  laws  be  faithfully  executed,  and  shall 
commission  all  the  officers  of  the  United  States. 

Sec.  4.  The  president,  vice-president,  and  all  civil  officers  of  the  United 
States,  shall  be  removed  from  office,  on  impeachment  for,  and  conviction  of, 
treason,  bribery,  or  other  high  crimes  and  misdemeanors. 

article  nr. 

Sec.  1.  The  judicial  power  of  the  United  States  shall  be  vested  in  one 
Supreme  Court,  and  in  such  inferior  courts  as  the  Congress  may  from  time  to 
time  ordain  and  establish.  The  judges  both  of  the  supreme  and  inferior  courts 
shall  hold  their  offices  during  good  behavior,  and  shall  at  stated  times  receive 
for  their  services  a  compensation,  which  shall  not  be  diminished  during  their 
continuance  in  office. 

Sec.  2.  The  judicial  power  shall  extend  to  all  cases  in  law  and  equity  arising 
under  this  constitution,  the  laws  of  the  United  States,  and  treaties  made  or 
which  shall  be  made  under  their  authority  ;  to  all  cases  affecting  ambassa- 
dors, other  public  ministers,  and  consuls  ;  to  all  cases  of  admiralty  and  mari- 
time jurisdiction  ;  to  controversies  to  which  the  United  States  shall  be  a 
party  ;  to  controversies  between  two  or  more  states  ;  between  a  state  and  cit- 
izens of  another  state  ;  between  citizens  of  different  states  ;  between  citizens 
of  the  same  state  claiming  lands  under  grants  of  different  states  ;  and  between 
a  state,  or  the  citizens  thereof,  and  foreign  states,  citizens  or  subjects.    In  all 


396 


APPENDIX. 


cases  affecting  ambassadors,  other  public  ministers  and  consuls,  and  those  in 
which  a  state  shall  be  party,  the  Supreme  Court  shall  have  original  jurisdiction. 
In  all  the  other  cases  before  mentioned,  the  Supreme  Court  shall  have  appellate 
jurisdiction,  both  as  to  law  and  fact,  with  such  exceptions  and  under  such  reg- 
ulations as  the  Congress  shall  make.  The  trial  of  all  crimes,  except  in  cases 
of  impeachment,  shall  be  by  jury  ;  and  such  trial  shall  be  held  in  the  state 
where  the  said  crimes  shall  have  been  committed  ;  but  when  not  committed 
tvithin  any  state,  the  trial  shall  be  at  such  place  or  places  as  the  Congress  may 
by  law  have  directed. 

Sec.  3.  Treason  against  the  United  States  shall  consist  only  in  levying  war 
against  them,  or  in  adhering  to  their  enemies,  giving  them  aid  and  comfort. 
No  person  shall  be  convicted  of  treason  unless  on  the  testimony  of  two  witnesses 
to  the  same  overt  act,  or  on  confession  in  open  court.  The  Congress  shall  have 
power  to  declare  the  punishment  of  treason,  but  no  attainder  of  treason  shall 
work  corruption  of  blood,  or  forfeiture,  except  during  the  life  of  the  person 
attainted. 

ARTICLE  IV. 

Sec.  1.  Full  faith  and  credit  shall  be  given  in  each  state  to  the  public  acts, 
records,  and  judicial  proceedings,  of  every  other  state.  And  the  Congress  may 
by  general  laws  prescribe  the  manner  in  which  such  acts,  records  and  proceed- 
ings, shall  be  proved,  and  the  effect  thereof. 

Sec.  2.  The  citizens  of  each  state  shall  be  entitled  to  all  privileges  and 
immunities  of  citizens  in  the  several  states.  A  person  charged  in  any  state 
with  treason,  felony,  or  other  crime,  who  shall  flee  from  justice,  and  be  found  in 
another  state,  shall,  on  demand  of  the  executive  authority  of  the  state  from 
which  he  fled,  be  delivered  up,  to  be  removed  to  the  state  having  jurisdiction 
of  the  crime.  No  person  held  to  service  or  labor  in  one  state,  under  the  laws 
thereof,  escaping  into  another,  shall,  in  consequence  of  any  law  or  regulation 
therein,  be  discharged  from  such  service  or  labor,  but  shall  be  delivered  up  on 
claim  of  the  party  to  whom  such  service  or  labor  may  be  due. 

Sec.  3.  New  states  may  be  admitted  by  the  Congress  into  this  Union  ;  but 
no  new  state  shall  be  formed  or  erected  within  the  jurisdiction  of  any  other 
state  ;  nor  any  state  be  formed  by  the  junction  of  two  or  more  states,  or  parts 
of  states,  without  the  consent  of  the  legislatures  of  the  states  concerned,  as  well 
as  of  the  Congress.  The  Congress  shall  have  power  to  dispose  of  and  make  all 
needful  rules  and  regulations  respecting  the  territory  or  other  property  belong- 
ing to  the  United  States  ;  and  nothing  in  this  constitution  shall  be  so  construed 
as  to  prejudice  any  claims  of  the  United  States,  or  of  any  particular  state. 

Sec.  4.  The  United  States  shall  guarantee  to  every  state  in  this  Union  a 
republican  form  of  government,  and  shall  protect  each  of  them  against  invasion, 
and  on  application  of  the  legislature,  or  of  the  executive  (when  the  legislature 
cannot  be  convened),  against  domestic  violence. 

ARTICLE  V. 

The  Congress,  whenever  two-thirds  of  both  houses  shall  deem  it  necessary, 
shall  propose  amendments  to  this  constitution,  or,  on  the  application  of  the 
legislatures  of  two-thirds  of  the  several  states,  shall  call  a  convention  for  pro- 
posing amendments,  which,  in  either  case,  shall  be' valid  to  all  intents  and 
purposes,  as  part  of  this  constitution,  when  ratified  by  the  legislatures  of  three- 
fourths  of  the  several  states,  or  by  conventions  in  three-fourths  thereof,  as  the 
one  or  the  other  mode  of  ratification  may  be  proposed  by  the  Congress  ;  pro- 
vided that  no  amendment  which  may  be  made  prior  to  the  year  one  thousand 
eight  hundred  and  eight  shall  in  any  manner  affect  the  first  and  fourth  clauses 
in  the  ninth  section  of  the  first  article  ;  and  that  no  state,  without  its  consent, 
shall  be  deprived  of  its  equal  suffrage  in  the  Senate. 


APPENDIX. 


397 


ARTICLE  VI. 


All  debts  contracted  and  engagements  entered  into,  before  the  adoption  of 
this  constitution,  shall  be  as  valid  against  the  United  States  under  this  consti- 
tution as  under  the  confederation.  This  constitution,  and  the  laws  of  the 
United  States  which  shall  be  made  in  pursuance  thereof,  and  all  treaties 
made,  or  which  shall  be  made,  under  the  authority  of  the  United  States,  shall 
be  the  supreme  law  of  the  land  ;  and  the  judges  in  every  state  shall  be  bound 
thereby,  anything  in  the  constitution  or  laws  of  any  state  to  the  contrary  not- 
withstanding. The  senators  and  representatives  before  mentioned,  and  the 
members  of  the  several  state  legislatures,  and  all  executive  and  judicial  officers, 
both  of  the  United  States  and  of  the  several  states,  shall  be  bound  by  oath  or 
affirmation  to  support  this  constitution  ;  but  no  religious  test  shall  ever  be 
required  as  a  qualification  to  any  office  or  public  trust  under  the  United  States. 


ARTICLE  VII. 


The  ratification  of  the  conventions  of  nine  states  shall  be  sufficient  for  the 
establishment  of  this  constitution  between  the  states  so  ratifying  the  same. 

Done  in  convention,  by  the  unanimous  consent  of  the  states  present,  the  seven- 
teenth day  of  September,  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  one  thousand  seven  hundred 
and  eighty-seven,  and  of  the  independence  of  the  United  States  of  America 
the  twelfth.    In  witness  whereof,  we  have  hereunto  subscribed  our  names. 

GEORGE  WASHINGTON,  President, 

and  Deput y  from  Virginia. 


NEW  HAMPSHIRE. 

John  Langdon, 
Nicholas  Oilman. 

MASSACHUSETTS. 

Nathaniel  Gorham, 
Rufus  King. 

CONNECTICUT. 

Wm.  Samuel  Johnson, 
Roger  Sherman. 

NEW  YORK. 

Alexander  Hamilton. 

NEW  JERSEY. 

William  Livingston, 
David  Brearley, 
William  Paterson, 
Jonathan  Dayton. 

PENNSYLVANIA. 

Benjamin  Franklin, 


Thomas  Mifflin, 
Robert  Morris, 
George  Clymer, 
Thomas  Fitzsimons, 
Jared  Ingersoll, 
James  Wilson, 
Gouverneur  Morris. 

DELAWARE. 

George  Read, 
Gunning  Bedford,  jun., 
John  Dickinson, 
Richard  Bassett, 
Jacob  Broom. 

MARYLAND. 

James  M 'Henry, 
Daniel  of  St.  Thomas  Jen- 
ifer, 
Daniel  Carroll. 


VIRGINIA. 

John  Blair, 

James  Madison,  jun. 

NORTH  CAROLINA. 

William  Blount, 
Richard  Dobbs  Spaight, 
Hugh  Williamson. 

SOUTH  CAROLINA. 

John  Rutledge, 
Charles  Cotesworth  Pinck- 
ney, 

Charles  Pinckney, 
'Pierce  Butler. 

GEORGIA. 

William  Few, 
Abraham  Baldwin. 


Attest,       WILLIAM  JACKSON,  Secretary. 


The  constitution  was  adopted  on  the  17th  September,  1787,  by  the  convention 
appointed  in  pursuance  of  the  resolution  of  the  Congress  of  the  Confederation 
of  the  21st  February,  1787,  and  was  ratified  by  the  conventions  of  the  several 
states,  as  follows,  namely  :  Delaware,  Dec.  7,  1787  ;  Pennsylvania,  Dec.  12, 

1787  ;  New  Jersey,  Dec.  18,  1787  ;  Georgia,  Jan.  2,  1788  ;  Connecticut,  Jan. 
9,  1788  :  Massachusetts,  Feb.  G,  1788  ;  Maryland,  April  28,  17S8  ;  South  Car- 
olina, May  23,  1788  ;  New  Hampshire,  June  21,  1788  ;  Virginia,  June  26, 

1788  ;  New  York,  July  26,  1788  ;  North  Carolina,  Nov.  21,  1789  ;  Rhode 
Island,  May  29,  1790. 

34 


398 


APPENDIX. 


AMENDMENTS  TO  THE  CONSTITUTION. 

At  the  first  session  of  the  first  Congress,  twelve  amendments  to  the  constitu- 
tion were  recommended  to  the  states,  ten  of  which  were  adopted  ;  the  others 
have  since  been  adopted. 

ARTICLE  I. 

Congress  shall  make  no  law  respecting  an  establishment  of  religion,  or  pro- 
hibiting the  free  exercise  thereof;  or  abridging  the  freedom  of  speech,  or  of 
the  press  ;  or  tlie  right  of  the  people  peaceably  to  assemble,  and  to  petition  the 
government  for  a  redress  of  grievances. 

ARTICLE  II. 

A  well-regulated  militia  being  necessary  to  the  security  of  a  free  state,  the 
right  of  the  people  to  keep  and  bear  arms  shall  not  be  infringed. 

ARTICLE  III. 

No  soldier  shall,  in  time  of  peace,  be  quartered  in  any  house,  without  the  con- 
sent of  the  owner  ;  nor  in  time  of  war,  but  in  a  manner  to  be  prescribed  by  law. 

ARTICLE  IV. 

The  right  of  the  people  to  be  secure  in  their  persons,  houses,  papers  and 
effects,  against  unreasonable  searches  and  seizures,  shall  not  be  violated  ;  and 
no  warrants  shall  issue  but  upon  probable  cause,  supported  by  oath  or  affirma- 
tion, and  particularly  describing  the  place  to  be  searched,  and  the  persons  c  f 
things  to  be  seized 

ARTICLE  V. 

No  person  shall  be  held  to  answer  for  a  capital  or  otherwise  infamous  crime, 
unless  on  a  presentment  or  indictment  of  a  grand  jury,  except  in  cases  arising 
in  the  land  or  naval  forces,  or  in  the  militia,  when  in  actual  service,  in  time  of 
war  or  public  danger  ;  nor  shall  any  person  be  subject  for  the  same  offence  to 
be  twice  put  in  jeopardy  of  life  or  limb  ;  nor  shall  be  compelled,  in  any  crimi- 
nal case,  to  be  a  witness  against  himself ;  nor  be  deprived  of  life,  liberty  or 
property,  without  due  process  of  law  ;  nor  shall  private  property  be  taken  for 
public  use  without  just  compensation. 

ARTICLE  VI. 

In  all  criminal  prosecutions  the  accused  shall  enjoy  the  right  to  a  speedy 
and  public  trial,  by  an  impartial  jury  of  the  state  and  district  wherein  the 
crime  shall  have  been  committed,  which  district  shall  have  been  previously 
ascertained  by  law,  and  to  be  informed  of  the  nature  and  cause  of  the  accusa- 
tion ;  to  be  confronted  with  the  witnesses  against  him  ;  to  have  compulsory 
process  for  obtaining  witnesses  in  his  favor  ;  and  to  have  the  assistance  of 
counsel  for  his  defence. 

ARTICLE  VII. 

In  suits  at  common  law,  where  the  value  in  controversy  shall  exceed  twenty 
dollars,  the  right  of  trial  by  jury  shall  be  preserved  ;  and  no  fact  tried  by  a 
jury  shall  be  otherwise  reexamined,  in  any  court  of  the  United  States,  than 
according  to  the  rules  of  the  common  law. 

ARTICLE  VIII. 

Excessive  bail  shall  not  be  required,  nor  excessive  fines  imposed,  nor  cruel 
and  uuusual  punishments  innieted. 


APPENDIX. 


399 


ARTICLE  IX. 

The  enumeration  in  the  constitution  of  certain  rights  shall  not  be  construed 
to  deny  or  disparage  others  retained  by  the  people. 

ARTICLE  X. 

The  powers  not  delegated  to  the  United  States  by  the  constitution,  nor  pro- 
hibited by  it  to  the  states,  are  reserved  to  the  states  respectively,  or  to  the 
people.  • 

ARTICLE  XI. 

The  judicial  power  of  the  United  States  shall  not  be  construed  to  extend  to 
any  suit  in  law  or  equity,  commenced  or  prosecuted  against  one  of  the  United 
States  by  ci&zens  of  another  state,  or  by  citizens  or  subjects  of  any  foreign  state. 

ARTICLE  XII. 

The  electors  shall  meet  in  their  respective  states,  and  vote  by  ballot  for 
president  and  vice-president,  one  of  whom,  at  least,  shall  not  be  an  inhabitant 
of  the  same  state  with  themselves  ;  they  shall  name  in  their  ballots  the  person 
voted  for  as  president,  and  in  distinct  ballots  the  person  voted  for  as  vice-pres- 
ident ;  and  they  shall  make  distinct  lists  of  all  persons  voted  for  as  president, 
and  of  all  persons  voted  for  as  vice-president,  and  of  the  number  of  votes  for 
each,  which  lists  they  shall  sign  and  certify,  and  transmit  sealed  to  the  seat  of 
the  government  of  the  United  States,  directed  to  the  President  of  the  Senate  ; 
the  President  of  the  Senate  shall,  in  presence  of  the  Senate  and  House  of 
Representatives,  open  all  the  certificates,  and  the  votes  shall  then  be  counted  ; 
the  person  having  the  greatest  number  of  votes  for  president  shall  be  the  pres- 
ident, if  such  number  be  a  majority  of  the  whole  number  of  electors  appointed  : 
and  if  no  person  have  such  majority,  then  from  the  persons  having  the  highest 
numbers,  not  exceeding  three,  on  the  list  of  those  voted  for  as  president,  the 
House  of  representatives  shall  choose  immediately,  by  ballot,  the  president. 
But,  in  choosing  the  president,  the  votes  shall  be  taken  by  states,  the  repre- 
sentation from  each  state  having  one  vote  ;  a  quorum  for  this  purpose  shall  con- 
sist of  a  member  or  members  from  two-thirds  of  the  states,  and  a  majority  of  all 
the  states  shall  be  necessary  to  a  choice.  And  if  the  House  of  Representatives 
shall  not  choose  a  president,  whenever  the  right  of  choice  shall  devolve  upon 
them,  before  the  fourth  day  of  March  next  following,  then  the  vice-president  shall 
act  as  president,  as  in  the  case  of  the  death  or  other  constitutional  disability  of 
the  president.  The  person  having  the  greatest  number  of  votes  as  vice-presi- 
dent shall  be  the  vice-president,  if  such  number  be  a  majority  of  the  whole 
number  of  electors  appointed  ;  and  if  no  person  have  a  majority,  then  from  the 
two  highest  numbers  on  the  list  the  Senate  shall  choose  the  vice-president  ;  a 
quorum  for  the  purpose  shall  consist  of  two-thirds  of  the  whole  number  of  sen- 
ators, and  a  majority  of  the  whole  number  shall  be  necessary  to  a  choice.  But 
no  person  constitutionally  ineligible  to  the  office  of  president  shall  be  eligible 
to  that  of  vice-president  of  the  United  States. 


WASHINGTON'S  FAREWELL  ADDRESS  TO  THE  PEOPLE  OP 
THE  UNITED  STATES. 

Friends  and  Fellow-citizens  :  — The  period  for  a  new  election  of  a  citizen 
jp  administer  the  executive  government  of  the  United  States  being  not  far 
distant,  and  the  time  actually  arrived  when  your  thoughts  must  be  employed 
in  designating  the  person  who  is  to  be  clothed  with  that  important  trust,  it 
appears  to  me  proper,  especially  as  it  may  conduce  to  a  more  distinct  expres- 
sion of  the  public  voice,  that  I  should  now  apprize  you  of  the  resolution  I  have 
formed,  to  decline  being  considered  among  the  number  of  those  out  of  whom  a 
choice  is  to  be  made. 

I  beg  you,  at  the  same  time,  to  do  me  the  justice  to  be  assured  that  this  res- 
olution has  not  been  taken  without  a  strict  regard  to  all  the  considerations 
appertaining  to  the  relation  which  binds  a  dutiful  citizen  to  his  country  ;  and 
that,  in  withdrawing  the  tender  of  service  which  silence,  in  my  situation,  might 
imply,  I  am  influenced  by  no  diminution  of  zeal  for  your  future  interest,  no 
deficiency  of  grateful  respect  for  your  past  kindness,  but  am  supported  by  a  full 
conviction  that  the  step  is  compatible  with  both. 

The  acceptance  of,  and  continuance  hitherto  in,  the  office  to  which  your  suf- 
frages have  twice  called  me,  have  been  a  uniform  sacrifice  of  inclination  to  the 
opinion  of  duty,  and  to  a  deference  for  what  appeared  to  be  your  desire.  I 
constantly  hoped  that  it  would  have  been  much  earlier  in  my  power,  consist- 
ently with  motives  which  I  was  not  at  liberty  to  disregard,  to  return  to  that 
retirement  from  which  I  had  been  reluctantly  drawn.  The  strength  of  my 
inclination  to  do  this,  previous  to  the  last  election,  had  even  led  to  the  prepara- 
tion of  an  address  to  declare  it  to  you  ;  but  mature  reflection  on  the  then  per- 
plexed and  critical  posture  of  our  affairs  with  foreign  nations,  and  the  unanimous 
advice  of  persons  entitled  to  my  confidence,  impelled  me  to  abandon  the  idea. 

I  rejoice  that  the  state  of  your  concerns,  external  as  well  as  internal,  no  longer 
renders  the  pursuit  of  inclination  incompatible  with  the  sentiment  of  duty  or 
propriety;  and  am  persuaded,  whatever  partiality  may  be  retained  for  my  ser- 
vices, that,  in  the  present  circumstances  of  our  country,  you  will  not  disapprove 
my  determination  to  retire. 

The  impressions  with  which  I  first  undertook  the  arduous  trust  were  explained 
on  the  proper  occasion.  In  the  discharge  of  this  trust,  I  will  only  say,  that  I 
have  with  good  intentions  contributed  towards  the  organization  and  administra- 
tion of  the  government  the  best  exertions  of  which  a  very  fallible  judgment 
was  capable.  Not  unconscious  in  the  outset  of  the  inferiority  of  my  qualifica- 
tions, experience,  in  my  own  eyes,  —  perhaps  still  more  in  the  eyes  of  others,  — 
has  strengthened  the  motives  to  diffidence  of  myself ;  and  every  clay  tho 
increasing  weight  of  years  admonishes  me,  more  and  more,  that  the  shade  of 
retirement  is  as  necessary  to  me  as  it  will  be  welcome.  Satisfied  that,  if  any 
circumstances  have  given  peculiar  value  to  my  services,  they  were  temporary, 
I  have  the  consolation  to  believe  that,  while  choice  and  prudence  invite  me  to 
qui"t  the  political  scene,  patriotism  does  not  forbid  it. 

In  looking  forward  to  the  moment  which  is  intended  to  terminate  the  career 
of  my  public  life,  my  feelings  do  not  permit  me  to  suspend  the  deep  acknowl- 
edgment of  that  debt  of  gratitude  which  I  owe  to  my  beloved  country  for  tho 
many  honors  it  has  conferred  upon  me  ;  still  more  for  the  steadfast  confidence 
with  which  it  has  supported  me,  and  for  the  opportunities  I  have  thence 
enjoyed  of  manifesting  my  inviolable  attachment,  by  services  faithful  and  per- 


APPENDIX. 


401 


severing,  though  in  usefulness  unequal  to  my  zeal.  If  benefits  have  resulted 
to  our  country  from  these  services,  let  it  always  be  remembered  to  your  praise, 
and  as  an  instructive  example  in  our  annals,  that,  under  circumstances  in 
which  the  passions,  agitated  in  every  direction,  were  liable  to  mislead  ;  amidst 
appearances  sometimes  dubious,  vicissitudes  of  fortune  often  discouraging  ;  in 
situations  in  which,  not  unfrequently,  want  of  success  has  countenanced  the 
spirit  of  criticism,  —  the  constancy  of  your  support  was  the  essential  prop  of  the 
efforts,  and  a  guarantee  of  the  plans  by  which  they  were  effected.  Profoundly 
penetrated  with  this  idea,  I  shall  carry  it  with  me  to  my  grave,  as  a  strong 
incitement  to  unceasing  vows  that  Heaven  may  continue  to  you  the  choicest 
tokens  of  its  beneficence  ;  that  your  union  and  brotherly  affection  may  be  per- 
petual ;  that  the  free  constitution,  which  is  the  work  of  your  hands,  may  be 
sacredly  maintained  ;  that  its  administration,  in  every  department,  may  be 
stamped  with  wisdom  and  virtue  ;  that,  in  fine,  the  happiness  of  the  people  of 
these  states,  under  the  auspices  of  liberty,  may  be  made  complete,  by  so  careful 
a  preservation  and  so  prudent  a  use  of  this  blessing  as  will  acquire  to  them  the 
glory  of  recommending  it  to  the  applause,  the  affection  and  the  adoption,  of 
every  nation  which  is  yet  a  stranger  to  it. 

Here,  perhaps,  I  ought  to  stop  ;  but  a  solicitude  for  your  welfare,  which 
cannot  end  but  with  my  life,  and  the  apprehension  of  danger  natural  to  that 
solicitude,  urge  me,  on  an  occasion  like  the  present,  to  offer  to  your  solemn 
contemplation,  and  to  recommend  to  your  frequent  review,  some  sentiments, 
which  are  the  result  of  much  reflection,  of  no  inconsiderable  observation,  and 
which  appear  to  me  all-important  to  the  permanency  of  your  felicity  as  a  people. 
These  will  be  afforded  to  you  with  the  more  freedom,  as  you  can  only  see  in 
them  the  disinterested  warnings  of  a  parting  friend,  who  can  possibly  have  no 
personal  motive  to  bias  his  counsel  ;  nor  can  I  forget,  as  an  encouragement  to 
it,  your  indulgent  reception  of  my  sentiments  on  a  former  #nd  not  dissimilar 
occasion . 

Interwoven  as  is  the  love  of  liberty  with  every  ligament  of  your  hearts,  no 
recommendation  of  mine  is  necessary  to  fortify  or  confirm  the  attachment. 

The  unity  of  government,  which  constitutes  you  one  people,  is  also  now  dear 
to  you.  It  is  justly  so  ;  for  it  is  a  main  pillar  in  the  edifice  of  your  real  inde- 
pendence, the  support  of  your  tranquillity  at  home,  your  peace  abroad,  of  your 
safety,  of  your  prosperity,  of  that  very  liberty  which  you  so  highly  prize.  But, 
as  it  is  easy  to  foresee  that  from  different  causes  and  from  different  quarters 
much  pains  will  be  taken,  many  artifices  employed,  to  weaken  in  your  minds 
the  conviction  of  this  truth, — as  this  is  the  point  in  your  political  fortress 
against  which  the  batteries  of  internal  and  external  enemies  will  be  most  con- 
stantly and  actively  (though  often  covertly  and  insidiously)  directed,  —  it  is  of 
infinite  moment  that  you  should  properly  estimate  the  immense  value  of  jour 
national  union  to  your  collective  and  individual  happiness  ;  that  you  should 
cherish  a  cordial,  habitual  and  immovable  attachment  to  it,  accustoming  your- 
selves to  think  and  speak  of  it  as  of  the  palladium  of  your  political  safety  and 
prosperity  ;  watching  for  its  preservation  with  jealous  anxiety  ;  discountenanc- 
ing whatever  may  suggest  even  a  suspicion  that  it  can,  in  any  event,  be  aban- 
doned ;  and  indignantly  frowning  upon  the  first  dawning  of  every  attempt  to 
alienate  any  portion  of  our  country  from  the  rest,  or  to  enfeeble  the  sacred  ties 
which  now  link  together  the  various  parts. 

for  this  you  have  every  inducement  of  sympathy  and  interest.  Citizens,  by 
birth  or  choice,  of  a  common  country,  that  country  has  a  right  to  concentrate 
your  affections.  The  name  of  American,  which  belongs  to  you  in  your  national 
capacity,  must  always  exalt  the  just  pride  of  patriotism,  more  than  any  appella- 
tion derived  from  local  discriminations.  With  slight  shades  of  difference,  you 
have  the  same  religion,  manners,  habits,  and  political  principles.  You  have, 
in  a  common  cause,  fought  and  triumphed  together  ;  the  independence  and 
liberty  you  possess  are  the  work  of  joint  counsels  and  joint  efforts,  of  common 
dangers,  sufferings  and  successes. 

34* 


402 


APPENDIX. 


But  these  consideration?,  however  powerfully  they  address  themselves  to 
your  sensibility,  are  greatly  outweighed  by  those  which  apply  more  immediately 
to  your  interest  ;  here  every  portion  of  our  country  finds  the  most  commanding 
motives  for  carefully  guarding  and  preserving  the  union  of  the  whole. 

The  North,  in  an  unrestrained  intercourse  with  the  South,  protected  by  the 
equal  laws  of  a  common  government,  finds,  in  the  productions  of  the  latter, 
great  additional  resources  of  maritime  and  commercial  enterprise,  and  precious 
materials  of  manufacturing  industry.  The  South,  in  the  same  intercourse, 
benefiting  by  the  agency  of  the  North,  sees  its  agriculture  grow,  and  its  com- 
merce expand.  Turning  partly  into  its  own  channels  the  seamen  of  the  North, 
it  finds  its  particular  navigation  invigorated  ;  and  while  it  contributes,  in  dif- 
ferent ways,  to  nourish  and  increase  the  general  mass  of  the  national  naviga- 
tion, it  looks  forward  to  the  protection  of  a  maritime  strength  to  which  itself 
is  unequally  adapted.  The  East,  in  like  intercourse  with  the  West,  already 
finds,  and,  in  the  progressive  improvement  of  interior  communication,  by  land 
and  water,  will  more  and  more  find,  a  valuable  vent  for  the  commodities  which 
it  brings  from  abroad,  or  manufactures  at  home.  The  West  derives  from  the 
East  supplies  requisite  to  its  growth  and  comfort,  and,  what  is  perhaps  of  still 
greater  consequence,  it  must,  of  necessity,  owe  the  secure  enjoyment  of  indis- 
pensable outlets  for  its  own  productions  to  the  weight,  influence,  and  the  future 
maritime  strength,  of  the  Atlantic  side  of  the  Union,  directed  by  an  indissoluble 
community  of  interest  as  one  nation.  Any  other  tenure  by  which  the  West 
can  hold  this  essential  advantage,  whether  derived  from  its  own  separate 
strength,  or  from  an  apostate  and  unnatural  connection  with  any  foreign 
power,  must  be  intrinsically  precarious. 

While,  then,  every  part  of  our  country  thus  feels  an  immediate  and  particular 
interest  in  union,  all  the  parts  combined  cannot  fail  to  find,  in  the  united  mass 
of  means  and  efforts,  greater  strength,  greater  resource,  proportionably  greater 
security  from  external  danger,  a  less  frequent  interruption  of  their  peace  by 
foreign  nations,  and,  what  is  of  inestimable  value,  they  must  derive  from  union 
an  exemption  from  those  broils  and  wars  between  themselves,  which  so  fre- 
quently afflict  neighboring  countries,  not  tied  together  by  the  same  government, 
which  their  own  rivalships  alone  would  be  sufficient  to  produce,  but  which  oppo- 
site foreign  alliances,  attachments  and  intrigues,  would  stimulate  and  embitter 
Hence,  likewise,  they  will  avoid  the  necessity  of  those  overgrown  military 
establishments,  which,  under  any  form  of  government,  are  inauspicious  to  lib- 
erty, and  which  are  to  be  regarded  as  particularly  hostile  to  republican  liberty  ; 
in  this  sense  it  is  that  your  union  ought  to  be  considered  as  the  main  prop  of 
your  liberty,  and  that  the  love  of  the  one  ought  to  endear  to  you  the  preserva- 
tion of  the  other. 

These  considerations  speak  a  persuasive  language  to  every  reflecting  and 
virtuous  mind,  and  exhibit  the  continuance  of  the  Union  as  a  primary  object  of 
patriotic  desire.  Is  there  a  doubt  whether  a  common  government  can  embrace 
so  large  a  sphere  1  Let  experience  solve  it.  To  listen  to  mere  speculation,  in 
such  a  case,  were  criminal.  We  are  authorized  to  hope  that  a  proper  organi- 
zation of  the  whole,  with  the  auxiliary  agency  of  governments  for  the  respective 
subdivisions,  will  afford  a  happy  issue  to  the  experiment.  It  is  well  worth  a 
fair  and  full  experiment.  With  such  powerful  and  obvious  motives  to  union, 
affecting  all  parts  of  our  country,  while  experience  shall  not  have  demonstrated 
its  impracticability,  there  will  always  be  reason  to  distrust  the  patriotism  of 
those  who,  in  any  quarter,  may  endeavor  to  weaken  its  bands. 

In  contemplating  the  causes  which  may  disturb  our  Union,  it  occurs,  as  a 
matter  of  serious  concern,  that  any  ground  should  have  been  furnished  for 
characterizing  parties  by  geographical  discriminations,  —  northern  and  southern, 
Atlantic  and  western,  —  whence  designing  men  may  endeavor  to  excite  a  belief 
that  there  is  a  real  difference  of  local  interests  and  views.  One  of  the  expedi- 
ents of  party  to  acquire  influence  within  particular  districts  is  to  misrepresent 
the  opinions  and  aims  of  other  districts.    You  cannot  shield  yourselves  too 


APPENDIX. 


403 


much  against  the  jealousies  and  heart-burnings  which  spring  from  these  misrep- 
resentations; they  tend  to  render  alien  to  each  other  those  who  ought  to  be  bound 
together  by  fraternal  affection.  The  inhabitants  of  our  western  country  have 
lately  had  a  useful  lesson  on  this  head  ;  they  have  seen  in  the  negotiation  by 
the  executive,  and  in  the  unanimous  ratification  by  the  Senate,  of  the  treaty 
with  Spain,  and  in  the  universal  satisfaction  at  that  event  throughout  the 
United  States,  a  decisive  proof  how  unfounded  were  the  suspicions  propagated 
among  them,  of  a  policy  in  the  general  government,  and  in  the  Atlantic  states, 
unfriendly  to  their  interests  in  regard  to  the  Mississippi  ;  they  have  been  wit- 
nesses to  the  formation  of  two  treaties  — that  with  Great  Britain  and  that  with 
Spain  —  which  secure  to  thorn  everything  they  could  desire  in  respect  to  our 
foreign  relations,  towards  confirming  their  prosperity.  Will  it  not  be  their 
wisdom  to  rely  for  the  preservation  of  these  advantages  on  the  Union  by  which 
they  were  procured  1  Will  they  not  henceforth  be  deaf  to  those  advisers,  if 
such  there  are,  who  would  sever  them  from  their  brethren  and  connect  them 
with  aliens  1 

To  the  efficacy  and  permanency  of  your  Union,  a  government  for  the  whole 
is  indispensable.  Xo  alliance,  however  strict,  between  the  parts,  can  be  an 
adequate  substitute  ;  they  must  inevitably  experience  the  infractions  and  inter- 
ruptions which  all  alliances,  in  all  time,  have  experienced.  Sensible  of  this 
momentous  truth,  you  have  improved  upon  your  first  essay,  by  the  adoption  of 
a  constitution  of  government  better  calculated  than  your  former  for  an  intimate 
Union,  and  for  the  efficacious  management  of  your  common  concerns.  This 
government,  the  offspring  of  our  own  choice,  uninfluenced  and  uuawed,  adopted 
upon  full  investigation  and  mature  deliberation,  completely  free  in  its  princi- 
ples, in  the  distribution  of  its  powers,  uniting  security  with  energy,  and  con- 
taining within  itself  a  provision  for  its  own  amendment,  has  a  just  claim  to 
your  confidence  and  your  support.  Respect  for  its  authority,  compliance  with 
its  laws,  acquiescence  in  its  measures,  are  duties  enjoined  by  the  fundamental 
maxims  of  true  liberty.  The  basis  of  our  political  systems  is  the  right  of  the 
people  to  make  and  to  alter  their  constitutions  of  government  ;  but  the  constitu- 
tion which  at  any  time  exists,  till  changed  by  an  explicit  and  authentic  act  of 
the  whole  people,  is  sacredly  obligatory  upon  all.  The  very  idea  of  the  power 
and  the  right  of  the  people  to  establish  government,  pre-supposes  the  duty  of 
every  individual  to  obey  the  established  government. 

All  obstructions  to  the  execution  of  the  laws,  all  combinations  and  associa- 
tions, under  whatever  plausible  character,  with  the  real  design  to  direct,  control, 
counteract  or  awe,  the  regular  deliberation  and  action  of  the  constituted  author- 
ities, are  destructive  to  this  fundamental  principle,  and  of  fatal  tendency. 
They  serve  to  organize  faction,  to  give  it  an  artificial  and  extraordinary  force, 
to  put  in  the  place  of  the  delegated  will  of  the  nation  the  will  of  a  party,  — 
often  a  small  but  artful  and  enterprising  minority  of  the  community,  —  and, 
according  to  the  alternate  triumphs  of  different  parties,  to  make  the  public 
administration  the  mirror  of  the  ill-concerted  and  incongruous  projects  of  fac- 
tion, rather  than  the  organ  of  consistent  and  wholesome  plans,  digested  by 
common  counsels,  and  modified  by  mutual  interests. 

However  combinations  or  associations  of  the  above  description  may  now  and 
then  answer  popular  ends,  they  are  likely,  in  the  course  of  time  and  things,  to 
become  patent  engines,  by  which  cunning,  ambitious  and  unprincipled  men  will 
be  enabled  to  subvert  the  power  of  the  people,  and  to  usurp  for  themselves  the 
reins  of  government ;  destroying,  afterwards,  the  very  engines  which  had  lifted 
them  to  unjust  dominion. 

Towards  the  preservation  of  your  government,  and  the  permanency  of  your 
present  happy  state,  it  is  requisite,  not  only  that  you  steadily  discountenance 
irregular  oppositions  to  its  acknowledged  authority,  but  also  that  you  resist 
with  care  the  spirit  of  innovation  upon  its  principles,  however  specious  the  pre- 
texts. One  method  of  assault  may  be  to  effect,  in  the  forms  of  the  constitution, 
alterations  which  wi-1  impair  the  energy  of  the  system,  and  thus  to  undermine 


404 


APPENDIX. 


what  cannot  be  directly  overthrown.  In  all  the  ohanges  to  which  you  may  be 
invited,  remember  that  time  and  habit  are  at  least  as  necessary  to  fix  the  true 
character  of  governments  as  of  other  human  institutions  ;  that  experience  is  the 
surest  standard  by  which  to  test  the  real  tendency  of  the  existing  constitution 
of  a  country  ;  that  facility  in  changes,  upon  the  credit  of  more  hypothesis  and 
opinion,  exposes  to  perpetual  change,  from  the  endless  variety  of  hypothesis  and 
opinion  ;  and  remember,  especially,  that  for  the  efficient  management  of  your 
common  interests,  in  a  country  so  extensive  as  ours,  a  government  of  as  much 
vigor  as  is  consistent  with  the  perfect  security  of  liberty  is  indispensable. 
Liberty  itself  will  find  in  such  a  government,  with  powers  properly  distributed 
and  adjusted,  its  surest  guardian.  It  is,  indeed,  little  else  than  a  name,  where 
the  government  is  too  feeble  to  withstand  the  enterprises  of  faction,  to  confine 
each  member  of  the  society  within  the  limits  prescribed  by  the  laws,  and  to 
maintain  all  in  the  secure  and  tranquil  enjoyment  of  the  rights  of  person  and 
property. 

I  have  already  intimated  to  you  the  danger  of  parties  in  the  state,  with  par- 
ticular reference  to  the  founding  of  them  on  geographical  discriminations.  Let 
me  now  take  a  more  comprehensive  view,  and  warn  you,  in  the  most  solemn 
manner,  against  the  baneful  effects  of  the  spirit  of  party  generally. 

This  spirit,  unfortunately,  is  inseparable  from  our  nature,  having  its  root  in 
the  strongest  passions  of  the  human  mind.  It  exists,  under  different  shapes,  in 
all  governments,  more  or  less  stilled,  controlled  or  repressed  ;  but  in  those  of 
the  popular  form  it  is  seen  in  its  greatest  rankness,  and  is  truly  their  worst 
enemy. 

The  alternate  domination  of  one  faction  over  another,  sharpened  by  the  spirit 
of  revenge,  natural  to  party  dissension,  which,  in  different  ages  and  countries, 
has  perpetrated  the  most  horrid  enormities,  is  itself  a  frightful  despotism.  But 
this  leads,  at  length,  to  a  more  formal  and  permanent  despotism.  The  disor- 
ders and  miseries  which  result  gradually  incline  the  minds  of  men  to  seek 
security  and  repose  in  the  absolute  power  of  an  individual  ;  and,  sooner  or 
later,  the  chief  of  some  prevailing  faction,  more  able  or  more  fortunate  than 
his  competitors,  turns  this  disposition  to  the  purposes  of  his  own  elevation  on 
the  ruins  of  public  liberty. 

Without  looking  forward  to  an  extremity  of  this  kind  (which,  nevertheless, 
ought  not  to  be  entirely  out  of  sight),  the  common  and  continual  mischiefs  of 
the  spirit  of  party  are  sufficient  to  make  it  the  interest  and  duty  of  a  wise 
people  to  discourage  and  restrain  it. 

It  serves  always  to  distract  the  public  councils,  and  enfeeble  the  publio 
administration.  It  agitates  the  community  with  ill-founded  jealousies  and 
false  alarms  ;  kindles  the  animosity  of  one  part  against  another  ;  foments, 
occasionally,  riot  and  insurrection.  It  opens  the  door  to  foreign  influence  and 
corruption,  which  find  a  facilitated  access  to  the  government  itself  through  the 
channels  of  party  passions.  Thus  the  policy  and  the  will  of  one  country  are 
subjected  to  the  policy  and  Avill  of  another. 

There  is  an  opinion  that  parties,  in  free  countries,  are  useful  checks  upon 
the  administration  of  the  government,  and  serve  to  keep  alive  the  spirit  of 
liberty.  This,  within  certain  limits,  is  probably  true  ;  and  in  governments  of 
a  monarchical  cast,  patriotism  may  look  with  indulgence,  if  not  with  favor, 
upon  the  spirit  of  party.  But  in  those  of  the  popular  character,  in  governments 
purely  elective,  it  is  a  spirit  not  to  be  encouraged.  From  their  natural  tend- 
ency, it  is  certain  there  will  always  be  enough  of  that  spirit  for  every  salutary 
purpose.  And  there  being  constant  danger  of  excess,  the  effort  ought  to  be, 
by  force  of  public  opinion  to  mitigate  and  assuage  it.  A  fire  not  to  be  quenched, 
it  demands  a  uniform  vigilance  to  prevent  its  bursting  into  a  flame,  lest, 
instead  of  warming,  it  should  consume. 

It  is  important,  likewise,  that  the  habits  of  thinking,  in  a  free  country, 
Bhould  inspire  caution  in  those  intrusted  with  its  administration,  to  confine 
themselves  within  their  respective  constitutional  spheres,  avoiding,  in  the 


APPENDIX. 


405 


exercise  of  the  powers  of  one  department,  to  encroach  upon  another.  The 
spirit  of  encroachment  tends  to  consolidate  the  powers  of  all  the  departments 
in  one,  and  thus  to  create,  whatever  the  form  of  government,  a  real  despotism. 
A  just  estimate  of  that  love  of  power  and  proneness  to  abuse  it  which  predomi- 
nates in  the  human  heart  is  sufficient  to  satisfy  us  of  the  truth  of  this  position. 
The  necessity  of  reciprocal  checks  in  the  exercise  of  political  power,  by  dividing 
and  distributing  it  into  different  depositories,  and  constituting  each  the  guardian 
of  the  public  weal,  against  invasions  by  the  others,  has  been  evinced  by  exper- 
iments, ancient  and  modern,  —  some  of  them  in  our  own  country,  and  under 
our  own  eyes.  To  preserve  them  must  be  as  necessary  as  to  institute  them. 
If,  in  the  opinion  of  the  people,  the  distribution  or  modification  of  the  constitu- 
tional powers  be,  in  any  particular,  wrong,  let  it  be  corrected  by  an  amendment 
in  the  way  which  the  constitution  designates.  But  let  there  be  no  change  by 
usurpation  ;  for  though  this,  in  one  instance,  may  be  the  instrument  of  good,  it 
is  the  customary  weapon  by  which  free  governments  are  destroyed.  The  pre- 
cedent must  always  greatly  overbalance,  in  permanent  evil,  any  partial  or 
transient  benefit  which  the  use  can,  at  any  time,  yield. 

Of  all  the  dispositions  and  habits  which  lead  to  political  prosperity,  religion 
and  morality  are  indispensable  supports.  In  vain  would  that  man  claim  the 
tribute  of  patriotism,  who  should  labor  to  subvert  these  great  pillars  of  human 
happiness,  these  firmest  props  of  the  duties  of  men  and  citizens.  The  mere  pol- 
itician, equally  with  the  pious  man,  ought  to  respect  and  to  cherish  them.  A 
volume  could  not  trace  all  their  connections  with  private  and  public  felicity. 
Let  it  simply  be  asked,  Where  is  the  security  for  property,  for  reputation,  for 
life,  if  the  sense  of  religious  obligation  desert  the  oaths  which  are  the  instru- 
ments of  investigation  in  courts  of  justice  1  And  let  us  with  caution  indulge 
the  supposition  that  morality  can  be  maintai  jed  without  religion.  Whatever 
may  be  conceded  to  the  influence  of  refined  education  on  minds  of  peculiar 
structure,  reason  and  experience  both  forbid  us  to  expect  that  national  morality 
can  prevail  in  exclusion  of  religions  principles. 

It  is  substantially  true,  that  virtue  or  morality  is  a  necessary  spring  of  pop- 
ular government.  The  rule,  indeed,  extends  with  more  or  less  force  to  every 
species  of  free  government.  Who  that  is  a  sincere  friend  to  it  can  look  with 
indifference  upon  attempts  to  shake  the  foundation  of  the  fabric  1 

Promote,  then,  as  an  object  of  primary  importance,  institutions  for  the  gen- 
eral diffusion  of  knowledge.  In  proportion  as  the  structure  of  a  government 
gives  force  to  public  opinion,  it  is  essential  that  public  opinion  should  bo 
enlightened. 

As  a  very  important  source  of  strength  and  security,  cherish  public  credit. 
One  method  of  preserving  it  is  to  use  it  as  sparingly  as  possible  ;  avoiding 
occasions  of  expense  by  cultivating  peace,  but  remembering,  also,  that  timely 
disbursements  to  prepare  for  danger  frequently  prevent  much  greater  disburse- 
ments to  repel  it ;  avoiding,  likewise,  the  accumulation  of  debt,  not  only  by 
shunning  occasions  of  expense,  but  by  vigorous  exertions  in  time  of  peace  to 
discharge  the  debts  which  unavoidable  wars  may  have  occasioned  ;  not  ungen- 
erously throwing  upon  posterity  the  burden  which  we  ourselves  ought  to  bear. 
The  execution  of  these  maxims  belongs  to  your  representatives,  but  it  is  neces- 
sary that  public  opinion  should  cooperate.  To  facilitate  to  them  the  perform- 
ance of  their  duty,  it  is  essential  that  you  should  practically  bear  in  mind  that 
towards  the  payment  of  debts  there  must  be  revenue  ;  that  to  have  revenue 
there  must  be  taxes  ;  that  no  taxes  can  be  devised  which  are  not  more  or  less 
inconvenient  and  unpleasant  ;  that  the  intrinsic  embarrassment  inseparable 
from  the  selection  of  the  proper  objects  (which  is  always  a  choice  of  difficulties), 
ought  to  be  a  decisive  motive  for  a  candid  construction  of  the  conduct  of  the 
government  in  making  it,  and  for  a  spirit  of  acquiescence  in  the  measures  for 
obtaining  revenue  which  the  public  exigencies  may  at  any  time  dictate 

Observe  good  faith  and  justice  towards  all  nations  ;  cultivate  peace  and  har- 
mony with  all ;  —  religion  and  morality  enjoin  this  conduct,  and  can  it  be  that 


406 


APPENDIX. 


good  policy  does  not  equally  enjoin  it  1  It  will  be  worthy  of  a  free,  enlight- 
ened, and,  at  no  distant  period,  a  great  nation,  to  give  to  mankind  the  mag- 
nanimous and  too  novel  example  of  a  people  always  guided  by  an  exalted 
justice  and  benevolence.  Who  can  doubt  that,  in  the  course  of  time  and  things, 
the  fruits  of  such  a  plan  would  richly  repay  any  temporary  advantages  which 
might  be  lost  by  a  steady  adherence  to  it  %  Can  it  be  that  Providence  has  not 
connected  the  permanent  felicity  of  a  nation  with  its  virtue  1  The  experiment, 
at  least,  is  recommended  by  every  sentiment  which  ennobles  human  nature. 
Alas  !  is  it  rendered  impossible  by  its  vices  1 

In  the  execution  of  such  a  plan,  nothing  is  more  essential  than  that  perma- 
nent inveterate  antipathies  against  particular  nations,  and  passionate  attach- 
ments for  others,  should  be  excluded,  and  that,  in  place  of  them,  just  and 
amicable  feelings  towards  all  should  be  cultivated.  The  nation  which  indulges 
towards  another  an  habitual  hatred,  or  an  habitual  fondness,  is,  in  some  degree, 
a  slave.  It  is  a  slave  to  its  animosity  or  to  its  affection,  either  of  which  is  suf- 
ficient to  lead  it  astray  from  its  duty  and  its  interest.  Antipathy  in  one  nation 
against  another  disposes  each  more  readily  to  offer  insult  and  injury,  to  lay 
hold  of  slight  causes  of  umbrage,  and  to  be  haughty  and  intractable  when  acci- 
dental or  trifling  occasions  of  dispute  occur.  Hence,  frequent  collisions,  obsti- 
nate, envenomed  and  bloody  contests.  The  nation,  prompted  by  ill-will  and 
resentment,  sometimes  impels  to  war  the  government,  contrary  to  the  best 
calculations  of  policy.  The  government  sometimes  participates  in  the  national 
propensity,  and  adopts,  through  passion,  what  reason  would  reject  ;  at  other 
times  it  makes  the  animosity  of  the  nation  subservient  to  projects  of  hostility, 
instigated  by  pride,  ambition,  and  other  sinister  and  pernicious  motives.  The 
peace  often,  sometimes  perhaps  the  liberty  of  nations,  has  been  the  victim. 

So,  likewise,  a  passionate  attachment  of  one  nation  to  another  produces  a 
variety  of  evils.  Sympathy  for  the  favorite  nation,  facilitating  the  illusion  of 
an  imaginary  common  interest,  in  cases  where  no  real  common  interest  exists, 
and  infusing  into  one  the  enmities  of  the  other,  betrays  the  former  into  a  par- 
ticipation in  the  quarrels  and  wars  of  the  latter,  without  adequate  inducement 
or  justification.  It  leads  also  to  concessions  to  the  favorite  nation  of  privileges 
denied  to  others,  which  is  apt  doubly  to  injure  the  nation  making  the  conces- 
sions, by  unnecessarily  parting  with  what  ought  to  have  been  retained,  and  by 
exciting  jealousy,  ill-will,  and  a  disposition  to  retaliate,  in  the  parties  from 
whom  equal  privileges  are  withheld  ;  and  it  gives  to  ambitious,  corrupted,  or 
deluded  citizens  (who  devote  themselves  to  the  favorite  nation),  facility  to 
betray  or  sacrifice  the  interest  of  their  own  country,  without  odium,  sometimes 
even  with  popularity;  gilding  with  the  appearance  of  a  virtuous  sense  ofLpbliga- 
tion,  a  commendable  deference  for  public  opinion,  or  a  laudable  zeal  for  publio 
good,  the  base  or  foolish  compliances  of  ambition,  corruption,  or  infatuation. 

As  avenues  to  foreign  influence  in  innumerable  ways,  such  attachments  are 
particularly  alarming  to  the  truly  enlightened  and  independent  patriot.  How 
many  opportunities  do  they  afford  to  tamper  with  domestic  factions,  to  practise 
the  art  of  seduction,  to  mislead  public  opinion,  to  influence  or  awe  the  public 
councils  !  Such  an  attachment  of  a  small  or  weak  towards  a  great  and  powerful 
nation  dooms  the  former  to  be  the  satellite  of  the  latter. 

Against  the  insidious  wiles  of  foreign  influence  (I  conjure  you  to  believe  me, 
fellow-citizens)  the  jealousy  of  a  free  people  ought  to  be  constantly  awake, 
since  history  and  experience  prove  that  foreign  influence  is  one  of  the  niogj 
baneful  foes  of  republican  government.  But  that  jealousy,  to  be  useful,  must 
be  impartial,  else  it  becomes  the  instrument  of  the  very  influence  to  be  avoided, 
instead  of  a  defence  against  it.  Excessive  partiality  for  one  foreign  nation, 
and  excessive  dislike  for  another,  cause  those  whom  they  actuate  to  see  danger 
only  on  one  side,  and  serve  to  veil,  and  even  second,  the  arts  of  influence  un 
the  other.  Heal  patriots,  who  may  resist  the  intrigues  of  the  favorite,  are 
liable  to  become  suspected  and  odious,  while  its  tools  and  dupes  usurp  the 
applause  and  confidence  of  the  people,  to  surrender  their  interests. 


APPENDIX.  407 


The  great  rule  of  conduct  for  us,  in  regard  to  foreign  nations,  is,  in  extending 
our  commercial  relations,  to  have  with  them  as  little  political  connection  as 
possible.  So  far  as  we  have  already  formed  engagements,  let  them  be  fulfilled 
with  perfect  good  faith.    Here  let  us  stop. 

Europe  has  a  set  of  primary  interests,  which  to  us  have  none  or  a  very 
remote  relation.  Hence  she  must  be  engaged  in  frequent  controversies,  the 
causes  of  which  are  essentially  foreign  to  our  concerns.  Hence,  therefore,  it 
must  be  unwise  in  us  to  implicate  ourselves,  by  artificial  ties,  in  the  ordinary 
vicissitudes  of  her  politics,  or  the  ordinary  combinations  and  collisions  of  her 
friendships  or  enmities. 

Our  detached  and  distant  situation  invites  and  enables  us  to  pursue  a  different 
course.  If  we  remain  one  people,  under  an  efficient  government,  the  period  is 
not  far  off  when  we  may  defy  material  injury  from  external  annoyance,  when 
we  may  take  such  an  attitude  as  will  cause  the  neutrality  we  may  at  any  time 
resolve  upon  to  be  scrupulously  respected,  —  when  belligerent  nations,  under 
the  impossibility  of  making  acquisitions  upon  us,  will  not  lightly  hazard  the 
giving  us  provocation,  —  when  we  may  choose  peace  or  war,  as  our  interest, 
guided  by  justice,  shall  counsel. 

Why  forego  the  advantages  of  so  peculiar  a  situation  ?  Why  quit  our  own 
to  stand  upon  foreign  ground  1  Why,  by  interweaving  our  destiny  with  that 
of  any  part  of  Europe,  entangle  our  peace  and  prosperity  in  the  toils  of  Euro- 
pean ambition,  rivalship,  interest,  humor,  or  caprice  1 

It  is  our  true  policy  to  steer  clear  of  permanent  alliances  with  any  portion 
of  the  foreign  world  ;  so  far,  I  mean,  as  we  are  now  at  liberty  to  do  it ;  for 
let  me  not  be  understood  as  capable  of  patronizing  infidelity  to  existing  engage- 
ments. I  hold  the  maxim  no  less  applicable  to  public  than  to  private  affairs, 
that  honesty  is  always  the  best  policy.  I  repeat  it,  therefore,  let  those  engage- 
ments be  observed  in  their  genuine  sense.  But,  in  my  opinion,  it  i3  unneces- 
sary, and  would  be  unwise,  to  extend  them. 

Taking  care  always  to  keep  ourselves,  by  suitable  establishments,  on  a 
respectable  defensive  posture,  wo  may  safely  trust  to  temporary  alliances  for 
extraordinary  emergencies. 

Harmony,  and  a  liberal  intercourse  with  all  nations,  are  recommended  by 
policy,  humanity  and  interest.  But  even  our  commercial  policy  should  hold  an 
equal  and  impartial  hand  ;  neither  seeking  nor  granting  exclusive  favors  or 
preferences  ;  consulting  the  natural  course  of  things  ;  diffusing  and  diversify- 
ing, by  gentle  means,  the  streams  of  commerce,  but  forcing  nothing  ;  establish- 
ing, with  powers  so  disposed,  in  order  to  give  trade  a  stable  course,  to  define 
the  rights  of  our  merchants,  and  to  enable  the  government  to  support  them, 
conventional  rules  of  intercourse,  the  best  that  present  circumstances  and 
mutual  opinions  will  permit,  but  temporary,  and  liable  to  be,  from  time  to  time, 
abandoned  or  varied,  as  experience  and  circumstances  shall  dictate  ;  constantly 
keeping  in  view  that  it  is  folly  in  one  nation  to  look  for  disinterested  favors 
from  another  ;  that  it  must  pay,  with  a  portion  of  its  independence,  for  what- 
ever it  may  accept  under  that  character  ;  that  by  such  acceptance  it  may  place 
itself  in  the  condition  of  having  given  equivalents  for  nominal  favors,  and  yet 
of  being  reproached  with  ingratitude  for  not  giving  more.  There  can  be  no 
greater  error  than  to  expect,  or  calculate  upon,  real  favors  from  nation  to 
nation.  It  is  an  illusion  which  experience  must  cure,  which  a  just  pride  ought 
to  discard. 

In  offering  to  you,  my  countrymen,  these  counsels  of  an  old  and  affectionate 
friend,  I  dare  not  hope  they  will  make  the  strong  and  lasting  impression  I 
could  wish,  —  that  they  will  control  the  usual  current  of  the  passions,  or  pre- 
vent our  nation  from  running  the  course  which  has  hitherto  marked  the  destiny 
of  nations  ;  but  if  I  may  even  flatter  myself  that  they  may  be  productive  of 
some  partial  benefit,  some  occasional  good,  that  they  may  now  and  then  recur  to 
moderate  the  fury  of  party  spirit,  to  warn  against  the  mischiefs  of  foreign 
intrigues,  to  guard  against  the  impostures  of  pretended  patriotism,  —  this  hope 


408 


APPENDIX. 


will  be  a  full  recompense  for  the  solicitude  for  your  welfare  by  which  they  hav» 

beeu  dictated. 

How  far,  in  the  discharge  of  my  official  duties,  I  have  been  guided  by  the- 
principles  which  have  been  delineated,  the  public  records,  and  other  evidences 
of  my  conduct,  must  witness  to  you  and  the  world.  To  myself,  the  assurance 
of  my  own  conscience  is,  that  I  have  at  least  believed  myself  to  be  guided  by 

them. 

In  relation  to  the  still  subsisting  war  in  Europe,  my  proclamation  of  the  2 2d 
of  April,  1793,  is  the  index  to  my  plan.  Sanctioned  by  your  approving  voice, 
and  by  chat  of  your  representatives  in  both  houses  of  Congress,  the  spirit  of 
that  measure  has  continually  governed  me,  uninfluenced  by  any  attempts  to 
deter  or  divert  me  from  it. 

After  deliberate  examination,  with  the  aid  of  the  best  lights  I  could  obtain, 
I  was  well  satisfied  that  our  country,  under  all  the  circumstances  of  the  case, 
had  a  right  to  take,  and  was  bound  in  duty  and  interest  to  take,  a  neutral 
position.  Having  taken  it,  I  determined,  as  far  as  should  depend  upon  me,  to 
maintain  it  with  moderation,  perseverance  and  firmness. 

The  considerations  which  respect  the  right  to  hold  this  conduct,  it  is  not 
necessary  on  this  occasion  to  detail.  I  will  only  observe  that,  according  to  my 
Understanding  of  the  matter,  that  right,  so  far  from  being  denied  by  any  of  the 
belligerent  powers,  has  been  virtually  admitted  by  all. 

The  duty  of  holding  a  neutral  conduct  may  be  inferred,  without  anything 
more,  from  the  obligation  which  justice  and  humanity  impose  on  every  nation, 
in  cases  in  which  it  is  free  to  act,  to  maintain  inviolate  the  relations  of  peace 
and  amity  towards  other  nations. 

The  inducements  of  interest,  for  observing  that  conduct,  will  best  be  referred 
to  your  own  reflections  and  experience.  With  me,  a  predominant  motive  has 
been  to  endeavor  to  gain  time  to  our  country  to  settle  and  mature  its  3ret  recent 
institutions,  and  to  progress,  without  interruption,  to  that  degree  of  strength 
and  consistency  which  is  necessary  to  give  it,  humanly  speaking,  the  command 
of  its  own  fortunes. 

Though,  in  reviewing  the  incidents  of  my  administration,  I  am  unconscious  of 
intentional  error,  I  am,  nevertheless,  too  sensible  of  my  defects  not  to  think  it 
probable  that  I  may  have  committed  many  errors.  Whatever  they  may  be,  I 
fervently  beseech  the  Almighty  to  avert  or  mitigate  the  evils  to  which  they 
may  tend.  I  shall  also  carry  with  me  the  hope  that  my  country  will  never 
cease  to  view  them  with  indulgence,  and  that,  after  forty -five  years  of  my  lifo 
dedicated  to  its  service  with  an  upright  zeal,  the  faults  of  incompetent  abilities 
will  be  consigned  to  oblivion,  as  mj'-self  must  soon  be  to  the  mansions  of  rest. 

Relying  on  its  kindness  in  this,  as  in  other  things,  and  actuated  by  that  fer- 
vent love  towards  it  which  is  so  natural  to  a  man  who  views  in  it  the  native  soil 
of  himself  and  his  progenitors  for  several  generations,  I  anticipate,  with  pleas- 
ing expectation,  that  retreat  in  which  I  promise  myself  to  realize,  without  alloy, 
the  sweet  enjoyment  of  partaking,  in  the  midst  of  my  fellow-citizens,  the  benign 
influence  of  good  laws  under  a  free  government  —  the  ever  favorite  object  of 
my  heart  —  and  the  happy  reward,  as  I  trust,  of  our  mutual  cares,  labors,  and 
dangers. 

GEORGE  WASHINGTON. 

United  States,  17th  September,  1796. 


AUTOGRAPHS. 


410  APPENDIX. 


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APPENDIX.  411 


APPENDIX. 


413 


414  APPENDIX. 


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416  APPENDIX. 


APPENDIX.  417 


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APPENDIX. 


423 


APPENDIX.  425 


36* 


APPENDIX. 


429 


432  APPENDIX. 


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APPENDIX. 


433 


APPENDIX.  m  439 


APPENDIX.  441 


442  APPENDIX. 


APPENDIX.  443 

GOVERNORS  OF  PLYMOUTH  COLONY,  CHOSEN  ANNUALLY  BY  THE,  PEOPL1 
[[John  Carver's  autograph  not  found.] 


GOVERNORS  OF  MASS.  UNDER  THE  FIRST  CHARTER,  CUOSEN  ANNUALLY. 


450 


APPENDIX. 


454  appendix; 


^  ^     $t£,  ^^^^ 


NOTICES  OF  THE  PRESS. 


This  is  a  fine  collection  of  extracts  from  American  speeches  and  orations.  It 
embraces  selections  from  one  hundred  and  fire  authors,  of  every  line  of  oratory, 
of  every  shade  in  politios,  philosophy  and  theology.  Between  six  and  seven 
hundred  autographs  appear  in  the  appendix.  The  book  is  worth  buying  for  ita 
fac  similes  alone.  —  Boston  Post. 

We  recommend  this  book  to  all  the  High  Schools  and  Academies.  It  is  a 
compilation  which  is  exceedingly  valuable  and  timely,  and  provides  for  a  want 
which  has  long  been  felt.  There  is  one  feature  in  this,  volume  which  is  novel, 
and  likely  to  be  very  attractive.  It  contains,  in  the  appendix,  over  six 
hundred  fac  similes  of  autographs.  This  is  a  collection  which  we  do  not  know 
to  be  accessible  anywhere  else,  and  it  gives  a  permanent  value  to  the  volume. 
—  Springfield  Republican. 

Among  the  many  works  of  its  character,  this  seems  to  us  to  be  the  most 
decidedly  meritorious.  It  contains  many  of  the  finest  passages  of  eloquence  to 
which  human  speech  ever  gave  utterance.  There  arc  passages  in  these  selec- 
tions which  will  go  down  to  posterity  side  by  side  with  the  most  renowned 
productions  of  Roman  or  Grecian  eloquence,  and  be  regarded  as  classic  as  long 
as  our  nation  has  a  history  in  the  memories  of  men.  The  work  i3  a  treasure, 
which  should  be  possessed  by  every  true  American.  In  the  appendix  wo  find, 
most  appropriately  placed,  copies  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  tho  Con- 
stitution of  the  United  States,  and  Washington *a  Farewell  Address.  Besides 
these,  we  have  a  peculiar  and  remarkable  feature  in  the  collection  of  fac  sim- 
iles of  the  autographs  of  more  than  six  hundred  individuals,  of  more  or  less 
note  and  character.  —  Boston  Odd  Fellow. 

"  The  American  Orator  "  is  a  desideratum  long  felt,  both  by  tutor  and  pupil. 
The  young  orator  and  student  will  rejoice  at  the  appearance  of  this  publication, 
while  the  literary  amateur  will  place  a  high  value  upon  it  as  a  book  for  refer- 
ence. —  Holyoke  Freeman. 

This  is  really  a  work  of  great  merit.  The  selections  have  been  carefully 
made,  and  generally  with  excellent  taste.  The  fact  that  the  compiler  was 
confined  entirely  to  the  productions  of  Americans  in  his  extracts  does  not  seem 
to  have  prevented  him  from  forming  a  book  which  contains  a  large  number  of 
the  choicest  passages.  But  the  most  striking  peculiarity  of  this  book  is  seen  in 
the  autograph  department.  These  are  many  and  various,  confined  to  no  par- 
ticular country  or  class  of  men.  The  public  generally  have  a  very  natural 
desire  to  behold  the  handwriting  of  those  individuals  who  have  .awakened  their 
curiosity  or  admiration.  The  very  large  collection  which  we  have  in  this  work 
seems  to  have  been  selected  and  arranged  with  much  judiciousness  and  care.  — 
South  Boston  Gazette. 

It  combines  an  excellent  and  well-printed  selection  from  the  speeches  and 
occasional  addresses  of  many  of  those  who  have  given  a  tone  and  character  to 
©ur  public  oratory,  —  Boston  Traveller. 


NOTICES  OP  THE  PRESS. 


This  is  a  work  of  more  than  ordinary  interest.  In  running  our  eye  down 
the  list  of  authors  represented,  we  recognize  the  names  of  some  of  the  most 
brilliant  orators,  profound  statesmen  and  eloquent  scholars,  the  world  has  ever 
produced.  As  a  common-place  book  for  the  scholar  and  man  of  taste,  as  well 
a3  for  the  student  in  cur  schools  and  academies,  we  prophesy  that  the  book  will 
become  eminently  popular.  The  most  original  and  unique  feature  of  the  pub- 
lication is  the  large  collection  of  fac  similes  of  autographs.  This  novel  plan 
of  tho  author  will  givo  the  bock  greafrvalue.  In  catering  to  this  taste,  the 
compiler  of  this  work  has  exhibited  much  shrewdness.  —  Boston  Waver ley 
Magazine. 

Thi3  is  really  an  interesting  volume,  embracing  rare  specimens  of  oratory  of 
distinguished  individuals,  —  specimens  worthy  to  be  read  in  families,  and 
treasured  in  the  memories  of  children.  —  Hartford  Times. 

This  book  has  several  distinct  attractions.  It  contains  a  very  large  number 
of  choice  specimens  of  American  eloquence  ;  next,  it  contains  several  docu- 
ments identified  with  our  national  history,  and  to  which  no  American  can  be 
indifferent  ;  then  there  are  fac  similes  of  the  signatures  of  the  signers  of  the 
Declaration  of  Independence,  and  a  large  number  of  distinguished  individuals, 
some  of  them  reaching  back  to  an  early  history  of  our  country.  The  extracts, 
of  which  the  work  chiefly  consists,  have  been  selected  with  much  taste  and 
judgment.  V/e  doubt  net  that  the  "  American  Orator  "  will  bo  extensively 
used  as  a  reading-book  in  our  schools.  —  Boston  Puritan  Recorder. 

In  the  whole  list  cf  rhetorical  "  Readers  "  and  "  Speakers  "  there  is  no  work 
like  this.  A  book  thoroughly  American,  being  specimens  of  the  eloquence  of 
our  greatest  orators,  upon  subjects  of  lasting  value,  commends  itself  to  every 
citizen  of  the  Union.  This  work  will  be  sought  for  by  that  large  portion  cf  our 
youth  who  arefdesirou3  "  to  speak  in  public  on  the  stage."  It  will  also  be  a 
valuable  addition  to  cur  school  reading-bcoks,  from  which  it  entirely  differs, — 
thus  offering  a  desirable  variety  in  one  of  the  most  important  branches  of  school 
instruction.  As  a  book  for  general  reading,  it  i3  valuable,  as  well  a3  appropri- 
ate. A  very  interesting  feature  is  the  fac  similes  of  the  autographs  of  a  great 
number  of  distinguished  individuals.  —  Worcester  Palladium. 

The  author  has  been  enabled  to  give  very  ample  specimens  cf  the  prose  elo- 
quence of  our  principal  orators  and  speakers.  The  selections  are  made  with 
much  good  taste.  —  Boston  Transcript. 

This  is  just  such  a  book  as  the  age  demands,  and  the  public  are  very  much 
indebted  to  the  compiler  for  its  production.  It  is  one  of  the  most  valuable 
books  that  has  appeared  for  a  long  time.  —  New  London  Star. 

This  is  a  very  valuable  book  to  the  student  of  elocution  and  the  general 
reader.  —  Olive  Branch. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  works  lately  published  is  "  The  American  Ora- 
tor." It  contains  a  large  number  of  pages  of  valuable  matter,  from  the  pro- 
ductions of  the  most  distinguished  cf  cur  authors,  both  of  the  present  and  past 
generation.  These  are  selected  with  commendable  discrimination,  and  bear 
evidence  of  having  been  carefully  prepared  by  the  compiler.  The  appendix 
contains  a  very  large  collection  of  fac  similes  of  the  autographs  of  distinguished 
characters,  and  constitutes  an  exceedingly  curious  feature  cf  the  work.  — 
Boston  Mail. 

This  collection  is  made  with  much  tact  and  judgment,  and  embraces  extracts 
from  the  productions  of  a  large  number  of  the  best  American  orators  and 
lecturers.  This  work  contains  many  gems  of  thought  and  models  of  eloquence. 
—  Boston  Journal. 


